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Right to Education has become a topic of hot debate not only in political but also in the educational fraternity in the recent past with the passing of RTE act in India. Being a citizen of an independent country every citizen enjoys some fundamental rights and also has some duties. One such right of an Indian citizen is right to education. The Constitution (Eighty-sixth Amendment) Act, 2002 inserted Article 21-A in the Constitution of India to provide free and compulsory education to all children in the age group of six to fourteen years as a Fundamental Right in such a manner as the State may, by law, determine.
The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, which represents the consequential legislation envisaged under Article 21-A, means that every child has a right to full-time elementary education of satisfactory and equitable quality in a formal school which satisfies certain essential norms and standards.
Right to Education Act and article 21-A was passed by Indian parliament on 4th April 2009 and came into effect on 1st April 2010 which focuses on the initiative by the Government of India to provide free and compulsory education to every child in the age group of 6 to 14. ‘Free education’ means that no child, other than a child who has been admitted by his or her parents to a school which is not supported by the appropriate Government, shall be liable to pay any kind of fee or charges or expenses which may prevent him or her from pursuing and completing elementary education. ‘Compulsory education’ casts an obligation on the appropriate Government and local authorities to provide and ensure admission, attendance and completion of elementary education by all children in the 6-14 ages. Private bodies are not within the Act's ambit.
Education has a broad meaning, application and importance. Education helps us with many things, but most importantly, it empowers an individual to think, question, and see beyond the obvious. Human beings are born with a natural tendency to question. Education is the best way to satisfy our curiosity, without extinguishing the burning desire to learn and explore more. Education really empowers a person to think practically and avoid illusions in the form of superstition and other religious beliefs which are really common in our country. Educated people are found to have higher self-esteem. Their lives are mostly well-planned and have a definite direction. They have better problem-solving skills and are consequently better equipped to handle everyday decisions. Hence an educated person is in a much better control of his life and also is able to give a healthier and better lifestyle for his family. Not learning how to do simple useful tasks can stop you from holding any sort of job that can earn you food and lodging. Even criminals have to be educated to learn how to lie cheat and steal properly to avoid being caught. Without education, life is like an empty well without water which is useful to none. If you don't have an education or a skill someone has to take care of you and anyone cannot depend on the other person for whole life which would obviously make the other person tired and angry. Hence it would not be wrong to say that education is an essential human virtue. Man becomes 'man' through education. He is what education makes him and possesses an important part in the life of a person.
History of the Right to Education Act (RTE)
Present Act has its history in the drafting of the Indian constitution at the time of Independence but is more specific to the Constitutional Amendment that included the Article 21-A in the Indian constitution making Education a fundamental Right. This amendment, however, specified the need for a legislation to describe the mode of implementation of the same which necessitated the drafting of a separate Education Bill.
A rough draft of the bill was composed in the year 2005. It received much opposition due to its mandatory provision to provide 25% reservation for disadvantaged children in private schools. The sub-committee of the Central Advisory Board of Education which prepared the draft Bill held this provision as a significant prerequisite for creating a democratic and egalitarian society. Indian Law commission had initially proposed 50% reservation for disadvantaged students in private schools. The bill was approved by the cabinet on 2 July 2009. Rajya Sabha passed the bill on 20 July 2009 and the Lok Sabha on 4 August 2009. It received Presidential assent and was notified as law on 26 August 2009 at The Children's Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act. The law came into effect in the whole of India except the state of Jammu and Kashmir from 1 April 2010, the first time in the history of India a law was brought into force by a speech by the Prime Minister. In his speech, Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India stated that “We are committed to ensuring that all children, irrespective of gender and social category, have access to education”.
The Provisions in Right to Education (RTE) Act
Funding of Right to Education (RTE) and its Implementation.
The framework of the Indian constitution is such that it allows both centre and state to legislate on the issues related to education. The Act lays down specific responsibilities for the centre, state and local bodies for its implementation. Since state governments are not able to provide sufficient standards in school, therefore there arises a need for central government to step in. Hence central funds the major part of finance for education.
A committee set up to study the funds requirement and funding initially estimated that Rs 171,000 crores across five years were required to implement the Act, and in April 2010 the central government agreed to share the funding for implementing the law in the ratio of 65 to 35 between the centre and the states, and a ratio of 90 to 10 for the north-eastern states. However, in mid-2010, this figure was upgraded to Rs. 231,000 crores and the centre agreed to raise its share to 68%. A critical development in 2011 has been the decision taken in principle to extend the right to education till Class X (age 16) and into the preschool age range. The CABE committee is in the process of looking into the implications of making these changes. A report on the status of implementation of the Act was released by the Ministry of Human Resource Development on the one year anniversary of the Act. The report admits that 8.1 million children in the age group six-14 remain out of school and there’s a shortage of 508,000 teachers country-wide. A shadow report by the RTE Forum representing the leading education networks in the country, however, challenging the findings pointing out that several key legal commitments are falling behind the schedule. The Supreme Court of India has also intervened to demand implementation of the Act in the Northeast. It has also provided the legal basis for ensuring pay parity between teachers in government and government-aided schools.
UNESCO welcomed the historic Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 which came into force on April 1. Apart from legalizing the right to education, the act places the onus on governments and local authorities to provide schools and sets out standards and norms covering numbers of teachers, training and curricula. It includes a plan to train more than one million new teachers in the next five years and retrain existing teachers. “This act is an essential step towards improving each child's accessibility to secondary and higher education, bringing India closer to achieving national educational development goals, as well as the Millennium Development Goals and Education for All (EFA)," said UNESCO New Delhi Director Armoogum Parsuramen.
Role of Private Institution in Implementation of (Right to Education) RTE
Private institutes cover a wide variety of institutions like International schools, Older established public schools (many of them residential) small and large urban schools with several branches, schools run by religious charitable trusts, private English-medium schools that have mushroomed in every part of the country and innovative schools run by NGOs. It would be effective to make rules that deal with all these types of schools with a single vision. It would be more beneficial to require their participation in a manner that is somewhat differentiated. Recently lawmaking body has directed private institutes to reserve 25% of seats for EWS students. Section 12 of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 (the Act) has made it compulsory for every private unaided school to admit at least 25% of its entry-level class from children belonging to weaker and disadvantaged groups. For this category of students, the state government shall reimburse schools an amount equal to either the fees charged by the school or the per child expenditure in state schools, whichever is lower.
There is still a need for broader participation by private schools which would help raise the education level and standard in the country. Educationally well-placed private schools could play a variety of constructive roles in bringing into effect the provisions of the RTE Act. While educating children from low-income families in these schools may be one among these roles, this would benefit only a small number of them, hence a broader approach is needed.
Right to Education (RTE) Criticism
Apart from various schemes and benefits derived there are criticizers for everything. The act has been criticized for being hastily-drafted and not sufficient amount of research work being put in before drafting the act, not consulting many groups active in education, not considering the quality of education, infringing on the rights of private and religious minority schools to administer their system, and for excluding children under six years of age. Many of the ideas are seen as continuing the policies of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan of the last decade, and the World Bank funded District Primary Education Programme DPEP of the '90s, both of which, while having set up a number of schools in rural areas, have been criticized for being ineffective and corruption-ridden.
Reasons for Failure of the Right to Education (RTE) Act
Nearly all developed countries of the world implemented act for the education many years back and it is only India which is lagging behind. India has already lagged behind several years in introducing the act. Of the nearly 200 million children in the age group between 6 and 14 years, more than half do not complete eight years of elementary education. Most of them either never enrol or they drop out of schools. Of those who do complete eight years of schooling, the achievement levels of a large percentage, in language and mathematics, is unacceptably low. As a signatory to the United Nations Child Rights Convention, India has accepted the international definition of a child as someone under the age of 18 years. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act covers only children in the age group between 6 and 14, clearly excluding and violating the rights of the 0-6 and 14 to 18-year-olds. This problem can be traced to the 86thAmendment and its Article 21A, which defines the age. The Act makes no reference to the Child Labor (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 and there is no categorical statement which prohibits the employment or engagement of children, which might hinder their prospects of education. The Act stipulates that the State must establish a school within the limits of the neighbourhood, in order to ensure free and compulsory education. However, there is no attempt made to define what a neighbourhood constitutes.
One of the biggest deficiencies in the Act is the complete absence of any qualitative enforcement mechanisms during the period of completing elementary education. While the Act espouses a no-detention policy, such a provision is not backed by any steps to measure the quality and standard of education. A passing reference to ensuring good quality education is enlisted as one of the duties of a school under the Act; nonetheless, the only standards and norms under the Schedule to the Act are measured by the number of instruction hours in a year.
Implementing Barriers for Right to Education (RTE)
