School rationalisation under NEP 2020 risks undermining the Right to Education Act's neighbourhood-school guarantee.

Q. School rationalisation under NEP 2020 risks undermining the Right to Education Act's neighbourhood-school guarantee. (15 marks, 250-350 words)

Article 21-A, inserted by the 86th Amendment, is operationalised through Section 6 of the RTE Act, 2009, which obliges governments to establish a neighbourhood school — 1 km for primary and 3 km for upper primary under the Central RTE Rules [1]. NEP 2020's "rationalisation" through school complexes seeks efficiency, but its State-level execution as closure and merger increasingly strains this statutory guarantee.

The case for rationalisation - NEP 2020 proposes grouping a secondary school with feeder schools in its vicinity for resource efficiency, shared teachers and better governance, explicitly without closing access [2]. - Over 1 lakh schools run on a single teacher, and tiny under-enrolled schools cannot deliver subject teachers, labs or libraries — consolidation can raise the pupil-teacher ratio's quality dividend [3][4]. - NITI Aayog's 2026 report notes government schools' enrolment share fell from 71% (2005) to 49.24% (2024-25), making some correction of surplus capacity unavoidable [4].

Why the guarantee is at risk - The same report records roughly 94,000 government schools shut in a decade alongside a 2.26 crore fall in government school enrolment — a scale that reads as contraction, not reorganisation [3][4]. - Mergers are ordered through executive circulars rather than statutory amendment; Uttar Pradesh's 2025 direction to merge very low-enrolment schools is under challenge in the Allahabad High Court for breaching Section 6 and Article 21-A [3]. - The social burden is unequal: longer commutes hit rural, tribal and poor children hardest, and raise dropout and safety risks for girls [3]. - Accountability gap — Madhya Pradesh's own department found lakhs of children with no school record, showing displaced children are not systematically tracked [3].

Rationalisation is not inherently unconstitutional; the defect lies in sequencing. Consolidation should follow, not precede, guaranteed transport, residential hostels and community consultation, with mandatory child-tracking audits before any closure. Efficiency legitimately serves quality only when the constitutional floor of Article 21-A — a school within reach of every child — is secured first.

(~320 words)

Sources: 1. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (India Code) — Section 6 neighbourhood-school duty; 1 km/3 km norms 2. National Education Policy 2020, Ministry of Education — school complexes, resource sharing and rationalisation intent 3. The Hindu — "Why are govt. schools shutting down?" (3 August 2026) — decade-long closures, UP merger order and Allahabad HC challenge, MP untracked children, equity impact 4. NITI Aayog, "School Education System in India: Temporal Analysis and Policy Roadmap for Quality Enhancement" (May 2026) — enrolment share decline, 2.26 crore enrolment fall, single-teacher schools 5. PIB — Ministry of Education releases UDISE+ 2024-25 report — official school-count and pupil-teacher ratio data