Unregulated Private Tutoring in India: Educational Inequalities Engendered by the “Light But Tight” National Education Policy 2020

In India, private tutoring (PT) centres are treated as commercial establishments, allowing them to circumvent the regulatory procedures and accountability mechanisms of educational institutions. The un(der)regulated status of the PT industry has led to a proliferation of a laissez-faire tutoring market with adverse ramifications for educational quality and equity. Against this backdrop, this chapter traces the undemocratic manner of the policy-drafting process of the proposed Maharashtra Private Tuitions (Regulation) Act from 2014 to 2019. In this qualitative inquiry, I draw upon primary data collected from interviews with members of the drafting committee and related stakeholders and supplement it with documentary evidence collected over this policy drafting process of five years. Findings portray the various roadblocks over this period that resulted in watering down of the draft, ultimately failing to acquire necessary approval for it to be passed. As such, the unregulated status quo of the PT sector continues. Against the background of this Maharashtra case study, the chapter discusses the implications of the unregulated status of the tutoring industry for the stipulations in National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. It highlights how some of these stipulations can implicate and get implicated by the PT sector. The proposed transformations in the school structure and the assessment system could be leveraged by the prolific, profit-seeking PT sector in a way that could deflect the very objectives envisioned by the reforms. Leaving the PT sector unregulated, while simultaneously providing it with newer avenues to pursue its profit-maximising objectives is likely to be perilous to the very concept of free and compulsory education for a country that is still endeavouring to fulfil the fundamental right to education for millions of children.