ON MARCH 31, the landmark Right to Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 which guarantees free and compulsory education to every child in the 6-14 age group completed its fourth anniversary. Although the Union government and major political parties locked in a high voltage combat to elect members of the 16th Lok Sabha had little time to mark the occasion, a report of the Delhi-based RTE Forum ” a network of 10,000 NGOs and child rights activists ” titled 4th year: Status Report on the Implementation of the RTE Act, 2009, says that only 8 percent of schools countrywide are compliant with the infrastructure and teacher-pupil norms stipulated by s.19 and Schedule of the Act.
Moreover, the report says the pivotal SMCs (school management committees) with parents in the majority, decreed by s. 28 of the Act, are non-starters resulting in ineffective institutional development and project implementation, budget cuts, delay in receipt of funds, non-functional grievance redressal mechanisms, and other violations of the Act across the country. œThe diversity in the prevailing situation, the absence of an open consolidated information source on the status of implementation of the Act across the country has been a major hindrance in this review process, the report adds.
According to Prof. Manoranjan Mohanty of the Council for Social Development, New Delhi, of the five legislative enactments of the Congress-led UPA-II government, only the RTE Act is a right with the potential to affect lives and build society, while the œothers are just relief measures. œAffirmative action of the past 25 years will come to naught if we fail to implement the right to quality education as stipulated by the RTE Act, he warns.
Likewise, the much-debated, celebrated, resisted and litigated s.12 (1) (c) of the Act which makes it mandatory for all private independent schools to reserve 25 percent capacity in primary education for children of economically weaker section (EWS) households, is also a non-starter. A study covering 352 households conducted by Delhi-based Indus Action, a non-profit group headed by Teach for India director Tarun Cherukuri, with support from the Central Square Foundation, indicates that 98 percent of heads of eligible EWS households in south Delhi didn™t apply for admission into neighbourhood private schools in the academic year 2013-14, due to lack of awareness, excessive documentation and procedural hurdles.
Therefore under its project Eklavya, Indus Action has started a door-to-door campaign in Delhi to facilitate the admission of EWS children into private unaided schools as mandated by the RTE Act. œAll families admitted they prefer private over government schools. They would like to change the school of their wards if given the opportunity and if not required to pay tuition fees, says the Indus Action report.
Likewise, the well-known pioneer B-school IIM-Ahmedabad has established an RTE Resource Centre to enable eligible children to derive the benefit of entitlements under the Act. œWe see an opportunity of transforming the common perception from disenchantment to engagement, and would like to open chapters in other cities, says Prof. Ankur Sarin, faculty, public systems group of IIM-A.
But according to Ashok Agarwal, the crusading Delhi-based lawyer and child rights activist, the best way to give teeth to s.12 (1) (c) is to do away with cumbersome documentation, and substitute it with self-declarations as in the case of private healthcare facilities in Delhi.
Adds Ashok Pandey, principal of Ahlcon International School, Delhi: œSchools must accept inclusion, stand up for this value system, and make it visible in their admission notices. Issues about adverse effects of diversity in classrooms flowing from inclusion are myths.
With a new ” and hopefully more purposive ” government set to assume office in Delhi shortly after May 16, fingers are crossed in the more enlightened segments of academia that there will be more cause for cheer on the fifth anniversary of the landmark RTE Act.
Autar Nehru (Delhi)