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Contribution short abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic research on implementation of India's Right to Education Act, this paper explores tensions between discourses of quality education as something all have a right to and as something that only the meritorious poor deserve access to.

Contribution long abstract:

The idea that merit should be rewarded has long been common-sense in educational institutions. Criticisms of affirmative action programs that aim to promote social mobility for disadvantaged groups through education are often underpinned by the notion that identity is being prioritised over merit. In this paper, we explore how discourses of merit rub up against discourses of rights in the context of implementation of India’s Right to Education Act in the city of Lucknow. We focus particularly on Section 12.1.c of the Act which requires private schools to educate underprivileged children in return for a modest state reimbursement rather than fees. This policy aims to desegregate private school classrooms, which tend to be fairly homogenous in terms of class-caste, and to promote upward social mobility among disadvantaged families. In our interviews with educators and parents as well as in media reporting and parliamentary debates, ‘merit’ is deployed both to support the policy – ‘disadvantaged students can be even more talented than privileged students’ – and to critique it – ‘selection of disadvantaged students for this provision should be based on ‘merit’ rather than a lottery’. Both critical and supportive narratives of merit were at odds with the notion of quality education as a right of all children. We explore the implications of these tensions around ‘merit’ for thinking about rights-based policy and redistributive politics more generally.