Right to Education (RTE)
Right to Education (RTE)
Education is the mirror of the society and base of all sorts of development of a nation. In India, the poor and very poor class has been deprived of good education and it has been restricted to the upper levels of the social structure. To bring it to the lowest levels of the society, various governments have taken many steps. In 1937, Gandhiji raised his voice for “universal education”.
After independence, Kothari commission was set up to formulate an inclusive education policy of the country. On the recommendations of the commission, PM Rajiv Gandhi announced the New Education Policy (NEP) in 1986. Under this policy, more than 90% of nation’s rural population was within a kilometer of schooling facilities. NEP 1986 was reviewed by Acharya Ramamurti committee. Besides, these committees various other steps have been taken to promote education:-
• Operation Blackboard in 1987 to improve physical resources in primary school.
• National Programme for Nutritional Support to Primary Education in 1995 for students of class 1-5. This was the foundation of popular “mid day meal” scheme.
• Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA) in 2001 is a central scheme for universalization of elementary education which called for better infrastructure, teachers and even scholarships to enrolled students.
Irrespective of all these steps, there was not a very major shift in the number of enrollments in primary schools. So, to encourage education, RTE Act came into force in the entire country from April 1 2010. It is now a fundamental right of every child between the age of 6 and 14 years to demand free and elementary education.
It is the first legislation in the world that shifts the onus of ensuring enrollment, attendance and completion on the government. It requires all private schools to reserve 25% of seats to children from poor families. Highlights of the act are:-
• Any time of the academic year, a child can go to a school and demand his right to education.
• The child need not pay even a single penny for his books or even uniforms etc.
• There is a requirement of a teacher student ration of 1:30.
• Concept of “neighborhood schools” taken from USA. It means that state govt. will make sure that there are primary schools within walking distance of a kilometer of the neighborhood. For students from class 6-8, the distance is 3 kilometer.
• This act is applicable in whole India except Kashmir.
The act has seen a change in the education level of India. Till 2012, 96.55 of children in the age group of 6 to 14 in rural India are enrolled. Out of it, 71.1% are enrolled in govt. schools. Also, as per census 2011, 74.04% population is literate out of which 82.145% male and 65.465% for female population is literate.
Still, there is a long way to go to improve the literacy in India, especially in terms of the disparities in girl and boy child.
Also, in India if a person can read or write his name in any of the local languages, he is considered to be literate.
The poor performance of primary schools and low efficiency of primary teachers is an open secret. Irrespective of all that, we hope to see more educated population which can contribute to the development of the nation in near future.
