ABSTRACT
India has almost achieved universal enrolment in primary schools. This is an important achievement, albeit one that has arrived too late for the many young men and women who missed out in recent decades. The government is now focusing its attention on retaining children and ensuring that they complete secondary schooling. This is fine and needed. However, getting children enrolled in schools has turned out to be radically insuficient for the real task of providing children with the skills they need for their future lives as workers, citizens and parents. All evidence shows that the bulk of India's basic education system is dismally failing in this task. This chapter summarises the evidence on the quality of education and the divergent views on what can be done about it. It discusses the implications for public action and how the or Right to Education (RTE) can be made to work better.
