In recent years, international development organisations have responded to concerns about the growth of private schooling in the global south by calling on governments to commit to quality public provision and effective regulation of the private sector. This paper draws on the case of India's experience with the Right to Education Act to consider the challenges that nations face in attempting to regulate private sector participation in education. Using the concept of 'modes of ordering' from Science and Technology Studies, we explore how attempts to impose this rights-based, government-centred order have fared against resistance from the market-based order of the private sector. As more countries express a commitment to a rights-based order, the Indian case study and the concept of 'modes of ordering' could help in anticipating and countering the challenges they might face.