Bigotry, bias, acceptance: For EWS kids, school life a mixed bag

NEW DELHI: The moment her Hindi teacher announced a group quiz in class one day, dread enveloped the 15-year-old girl hiding in the back benches at a private school in south Delhi.

- Somya Lakhani

As other students coalesced into groups of friends, she stood alone in a corner—aware that the teacher would have to fit her in one.

"No one picked me. I sat in a circle with a group, and handed a book to a classmate, who said, 'Chhee chhee kis ke haath mein meri book aa gayi hai' (Yuck, which person has my book in their hands)," recalled the 15-year-old months after she broke down in class over this remark.

Born in an unauthorized colony in south Delhi, the teenager grew up watching her family struggle with money. With dreams of a better future in his eyes, her father enrolled her in a private school 300 meters away from the slum, under the economically weaker section (EWS) quota. "My parents put me here thinking it's a well-known private school which was now accessible to the poor... But I hate it here. No one speaks to me because I am from the slum," said the teenager on a cold December evening.

Her friend, a 14-year-old student at another reputed south Delhi school, is stunned at the confident.

Between the experiences of these two teenagers is suspended the mixed bag of outcomes of one of India's most significant educational reforms—the Right to Education (RTE) Act that called for "free and compulsory education for all children between the ages of six and 14 years" and mandated that 25% of seats in private, unaided schools be reserved for children from economically weaker sections (EWS).

Since its inception, Delhi-based advocate and activist Ashok Agarwal has watched the system falter, and then gradually evolve. Cases of discrimination, he said, have decreased but haven't disappeared.