India is grandly choosing to give its citizens statutory 'rights' over public services that the State should be providing as a matter of routine, but whose delivery, in our case, has long been in shambles.

We have had statutory right to information. Some of the successes of RTI notwithstanding, compliance with this law has largely been running into our arrogant, corrupt and unreformed administration.

We will soon have the statutory right to education at a time when state-provided education has gone to seed. The proliferation of private teaching shops providing services at various price points suggests that even the poor no longer want their children to go to government schools.

What is perceived as 'quality' education comes for a price that only a few can pay.

For most Indian children, there is either no access, or no equity and quality.

So, what will right to education Act do?

Will a State, which has long been failing in both its roles as a provider of education and as a regulator of private education, somehow manage to give children access, equity and quality just because we now have a statutory right to education?