Education and planning for social integration-Lessons from urban land policy and legislation

Abstract

The ethos of the first policy note on urban land use was transformed into State legislation, City Master plans and ultimately into rules that apply in almost all Indian cities-rules designed to ensure that the school is a central feature in city layouts, to enable all children in the neighbourhood to attend a common school, and to allow private schools to acquire land almost free in return for promises to not refuse neighbourhood children and to include the children of the poor. If land policy can pursue these social objectives, this paper asks, then should the purpose of educational legislation not be to do as much, if not more, for furthering the Constitutional goals of social integration and equality of facilities and opportunity?