The Power of Advocating Reform

Lotus Outreach believes that good stewardship means not duplicating projects and programs that are already underway, be they implemented by other development organizations or governments. Perhaps more importantly, however, we believe that we can get a lot more mileage from our investment of time and money if we augment what already exists. In the case of our core education programs, for example, this means supplementing (v. replicating) the government education system through transportation programs, scholarships, and tutoring. Unlike some of our counterparts in the charitable sector, we don’t build private schools or fund private scholarships. We believe that if education is going to be effective, compulsory, and universal, we must invest in improving the government system rather than turning our backs on it.

Our LEARN project has been championing this philosophy in rural India by working to eradicate corruption from the public school system using independent monitoring, legal advocacy, public interest litigation, and community mobilization. One of the most important tools in our arsenal is India's landmark 2009 Right to Education Act, which requires the federal government to put up 65% of the funding necessary to ensure the constitutional right to education of every child in India. By serving as an anti-corruption watchdog, LEARN is working to ensure this funding ends up where it belongs: in India's classrooms.

RTE is no doubt one of the most ambitious pieces of legislation the world has ever seen, and putting it into practice is already proving difficult. That said, UNICEF just reported the following achievements as a result of RTE:

"The implementation of Right to Education Act (RTE) has ensured that education budget in most of the states is doubled. 99 per cent of India's rural population now has a primary school within a one-km radius [and] many as 11 million more children are now enrolled in schools.”

Lotus Outreach celebrates this tremendous success, and we know LEARN had a role in making it happen, particularly in the Mewat district of Haryana. We believe that a functional common education system in India can be realized within our lifetimes, and RTE is our greatest weapon in bringing this vision to life.

To read more about how LEARN is ensuring the implementation of RTE, click here.