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News Alerts | RIGHT TO EDUCATION: TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE?

RIGHT TO EDUCATION: TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE?

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published Published on Aug 20, 2009   modified Modified on Aug 20, 2009

Is the Right to Education Bill a landmark legislation as it is made out to be? The opinion is divided and it is not an exaggeration that the Bill has disappointed India’s educationists and Civil Society activists alike. To say the least, what got passed in Lok Sabha was a huge compromise from the state’s earlier commitment of providing the country’s children easy and equitable access to quality education without discrimination. It provides easy but not equitable, and the bare minimum rather than quality education.


The biggest problem is that there is no commitment to quality in the Bill and there is no punishment for those who flout its provisions. It guarantees promotion by removing exams without setting standards for learning. It has ignored an earlier suggestion to benchmark the minimum quality of education to the level of Kendriya Vidyalayas. The other problem is that it has nothing for children below six and above 14 years of age.


Madhav Chavan who heads education initiative Pratham has been advocating minimum standards of reading, writing, arithmetic and teacher training along with an open examination system at three levels up to Class X in order to assess the students, teachers and the schools. However the government has left the issue of quality to school bureaucracy in the states. Pratham’s Annual Status Report on Education (ASER 2008) is already a classic in assessing education quality at the primary level.

 The Bill omits any commitment on the definition of a school. This means that a state government official can fulfil the constitutional obligation by allowing one-room shacks to be recognised as schools, a practice already common in desperately poor areas. The Civil Society activists who have been rooting for a right to education for decades would have liked to see at least four to six classrooms, a playground, provisions for drinking water and toilets and a library included in the definition of a school.

The main contours of the debate on the Right to Education, the Bill’s provisions, its criticism and an assessment of its strengths and weaknesses are contained in the following links:

86th Constitutional Amendment

PRS Legislative Brief

The bill is short on transparency and accountability, Madh
av Chavan

Azim Premji Foundation

Misconceiving Fundamentals, Dismantling Rights, Anil Sadgopal

Solution Exchange - Collated responses of the Education Community


Rural Expert
 

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