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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | A case of too little, too late or is there some cause for celebration? : The RTE Act 2009 by Dipa Sinha

A case of too little, too late or is there some cause for celebration? : The RTE Act 2009 by Dipa Sinha

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published Published on May 12, 2010   modified Modified on May 12, 2010

India’s record in providing education to its children has been very poor. Low education levels have an impact on income, productivity, health status and standard of living. As per 2001 Census, the overall literacy rate of India is still only 65.4%, with many states having a literacy rate less than the national average. While the male literacy rate is around 76%, only about 54% females are literate1. What is important is not just literacy but actually completing a minimum level of schooling. Although enrolment rates have increased tremendously over the years, 50% of children who enter schools drop out by the time they reach class VIII. According to one estimate based on the report of the Joint Review Mission of the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, currently about 44million children in the age group of 11 to 14 years do not go to school2.
 
In such a context the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE Act)3 that was in Parliament passed last August (and came into effect on April 1st, 2010) acquires great significance. Although the Constitution of India initially put the Right to Education under the Directive Principles of State Policy and not under the “fundamental rights”; it had aimed to achieve universal literacy within a period of ten years. In spite of this commitment, school education remained one of the most neglected areas of public policy in our country. It is only in 2002 that an amendment was made to the Constitution declaring the Right to Free and Compulsory Education for children in the age group of 6 to 14 years (86th Amendment). However the right was to become operational only when an Act was passed by Parliament spelling out the duties and obligations of the state as well as society and it took almost eight years for this to be done.
 
During this period there were various drafts of the Right to Education Bill and different committees such as the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) were set up on this. The entire process of finalising the Bill exposed the actual intentions of the government where at every stage there was an attempt to sabotage the Bill and pass on the responsibility on to others – the initial Bill proposed punishing parents for not sending their children to school which was fortunately removed after a huge uproar from child rights activists. At a later stage the Government of India tried to bully the state governments into passing the Bill in the Legislative Assemblies, saying that the national Bill was only to be seen as a ‘model’ Bill for states to convert into an Act. Even the final form of the Act that has been passed in the Parliament has many lacunae and is unsatisfactory4.
 
Firstly, this Act addresses the right to education for children in the age group of 6 to 14, ignoring children under 6 years of age and those in the 14 to 18 age group. It is widely recognised that early childhood education contributes to the learning abilities of children in primary school and also enhances the retention of children in primary school. Further, considering that children from the middle and upper classes, who mainly go to private school start schooling at the age of 3+, therefore have an edge over children going to government schools even before they start primary school.
 
Secondly, the Act does not really include private schools, other than the provision for reservation of 25% of seats in private schools for ‘poor’ children. Further, for unaided schools, the government will reimburse the costs involved with educating these children to the private school. In our country where education is a deeply divided sector based on class, many argue that such an Act only perpetuates this inequality by keeping private schools largely out of the ambit of the Act. Some also feel that the Right to Education Act is in fact a lost opportunity for moving towards a Common School System, and therefore is not of much significance.
 
Thirdly, while the Act makes many promises there is no corresponding financial obligations specified and a large burden of financing the expenditure of the Act is placed on the state governments. Poorer states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have already started complaining that they will not be able to bear the burden of the RTE Act and have asked for support from the Central Government. This issue has to be resolved quite soon if the Act is to be truly implemented, adhering to the timeline specified in it. Indeed, it is these poorer states which face an acute shortage of trained teachers and infrastructure and therefore require the maximum investment in the initial years.
 
While agreeing that this Bill indeed is a much watered down version of what is ideal, especially after 60 years of Independence, it must be recognised although it has come too late this Act has a great potential towards protecting the rights of children in the country. The RTE Act guarantees free education to all children in the 6 to 14 years age group in a neighbourhood school. The schedule of the Act clearly defines a school, wherein it is ensured that all children can go to regular schools with minimum quality standards of infrastructure and teachers and night schools, non-formal schools, schools under trees and so on cannot be substitutes for proper school education. Norms have been laid out for pupil-teacher ratios (1:30), availability subject and head teachers, minimum number of working hours and infrastructure such as number of rooms, toilets, playground, library, drinking water and so on.
 
Further, the Act provides for children who are older than 6 years but are not in school for any reason to be integrated into mainstream education. It is clearly stated that arrangements must be made for bringing children into a class appropriate to their age. For this any additional facilities required such as bridge courses, hostels etc. must be set up.
 
The Act recognises that a number of barriers to enrolment and retention exist within the school system itself and tries to address at least some of these. It has been widely documented that many of the ‘drop outs’ from the education are in fact ‘push outs’ who have not been able to continue in school due all kinds of administrative bottlenecks as a result of insensitivity of the system to children of illiterate parents. For instance, the Act specifies that there should not be an insistence on birth certificates for admission into school, there should be no “entrance tests” or that children should be allowed to gain entry into the school at any time of the year. These provisions, if implemented properly can go a long way in removing the entry barriers for many children who do want to but are unable to because of such reasons.
 
Further, the RTE Act can be seen as the opportunity for abolition of child labour in the country. Many argue that in the current context of poverty in our country, children in many families must work in order to supplement family income. Children are sent to work and not to school because families cannot survive if they do not earn. It is argued that in such a context universal education is not possible as long as basic issues related to income and livelihoods are not addressed. It is ‘unrealistic’ to insist that all forms of child labour must be abolished and that every child must be in full time day schools. The Child Labour (Prevention and Regulation) Act therefore bans child labour only in certain ‘hazardous’ sectors while allowing children to continue to work in many areas that are considered ‘non-hazardous’. Therefore, this law accepts children working on farms, grazing animals, taking care of siblings and doing house work during school hours. While not denying the existence of poverty, it can no longer be used as an excuse to keep children out of school. It is the onus of the state to ensure that the child’s right to education is protected under any circumstances. The primary responsibility of providing all facilities to ensure that this right is safeguarded lies with the state and not with the family.
 
With the passing of the RTE Act the country can move from asking why it is that children work and not go to school to how sending all children to school can be made possible. The framework of the Act can be used as a platform to launch a national campaign for establishing a norm against child labour and for all children in schools. This should also be supported by amending the Child Labour Act making all forms of child labour unacceptable.
 
Although the RTE Act has almost no special provisions for girls, one of its outcomes could be to bring protection of rights of young girls into the forefront. Universalising education would make visible the millions of girls who are hidden away working in their own homes and farms. Implementing this Act would be enlisting every children of the 6-14 age group in a village, slum, town or city and monitoring whether they are in school or not. If done properly, then this exercise will reach all the children invisible in their homes or on the streets without access to schools. When there are sustained efforts to bring girls to school and keep them there, it has been seen that many other issues related to girls also come into public debate. As more and more girls come to school and there are conscious efforts to keep them in school issues such as safety for girls, child marriage, menstruation-related customs, and opportunities for higher education for girls and so on would also need to be addressed.
 
Of course, for the RTE Act to truly achieve all of this it has to be backed by political will and the budgetary allocations at both the central and state levels. Provisions in the Act such as greater role for local bodies, making qualified teachers available, mainstreaming older out of school children, special arrangements for vulnerable children must be immediately put into action. While the RTE Act could have been much better, even what is in the Act presently can be used as a powerful tool to achieve the right to education for children in the country. It is up to the country as a whole to ensure that this potential is realised, while continuing to strive for better and more equitable legislation.

1 For analysis of Census data on literacy rates see http://www.educationforallinindia.com/page139.html

2 Subodh Varma, “Will RTE address rising dropout rate?”, Times of India, 3 April 2010 available at http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/Will-RTE-address-r
ising-dropout-rate/articleshow/5755842.cms

3 A copy of the Act is available at http://education.nic.in

4 See Praveen Jha and Pooja Parvati (2010), “Right to Education Act 2009: Critical Gaps and Challenges”, Economic and Political Weekly, 27 March

Pragoti, May, 2010, http://www.pragoti.org/node/3925


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