The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act or Right to Education Act, is
an Act of the Parliament of India enacted on 4 August 2009, which describes the modalities
of the importance of free and compulsory education for children between 6 and 14 in India under
Article 21a of the Indian Constitution. India became one of 135 countries to make education
a fundamental right of every child when the act came into force on 1 April 2010.
History Present Act has its history in the drafting
of the Indian constitution at the time of Independence but is more specifically to the
Constitutional Amendment of 2002 that included the Article 21A 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
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. On 7 May 2014, The Supreme Court of India
ruled that Right to Education Act is not applicable to Minority institutions.
Passage 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 as 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. An education
that enables them to acquire the skills, knowledge, values and attitudes necessary to become responsible
and active citizens of India." Highlights
The Act makes education a fundamental right of every child between the ages of 6 and 14
and specifies minimum norms in elementary schools. It requires all private schools to
reserve 25% of seats to children. Kids are admitted in to private schools based on caste
based reservations. see Page 9 and Point no 4 of This Document. It also prohibits all
unrecognised schools from practice, and makes provisions for no donation or capitation fees
and no interview of the child or parent for admission. The Act also provides that no child
shall be held back, expelled, or required to pass a board examination until the completion
of elementary education. There is also a provision for special training of school drop-outs to
bring them up to par with students of the same age.
The RTE act requires surveys that will monitor all neighbourhoods, identify children requiring
education, and set up facilities for providing it. The World Bank education specialist for
India, Sam Carlson, has observed: The RTE Act is the first legislation in the
world that puts the responsibility of ensuring enrolment, attendance and completion on the
Government. It is the parents' responsibility to send the children to schools in the US
and other countries. The Right to Education of persons with disabilities
until 18 years of age is laid down under a separate legislation- the Persons with Disabilities
Act. A number of other provisions regarding improvement of school infrastructure, teacher-student
ratio and faculty are made in the Act. Implementation and funding
Education in the Indian constitution is a concurrent issue and both centre and states
can legislate on the issue. The Act lays down specific responsibilities for the centre,
state and local bodies for its implementation. The states have been clamouring that they
lack financial capacity to deliver education of appropriate standard in all the schools
needed for universal education. Thus it was clear that the central government will be
required to subsidise the states. A committee set up to study the funds requirement
and funding initially estimated that Rs 1710 billion or 1.71 trillion across five years was required
to implement the Act, and in April 2010 the central government agreed to sharing 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. 2310 billion, and the center agreed to raise its share to 68%. There
is some confusion on this, with other media reports stating that the centre's share of
the implementation expenses would now be 70%. At that rate, most states may not need to
increase their education budgets substantially. A critical development in 2011 has been the
decision taken in principle to extend the right to education till Class X and into the
preschool age range. The CABE committee is in the process of looking into the implications
of making these changes. Advisory Council on Implementation
The Ministry of HRD set up a high-level, 14-member National Advisory Council for implementation
of the Act. The members include Kiran Karnik, former president of NASSCOM
Krishna Kumar, former director of the NCERT Mrinal Miri, former vice-chancellor of North-East
Hill University Yogendra Yadav – social scientist. India
Sajit Krishnan kutty Secretary of The Educators Assisting Children's HopesIndia.
Annie Namala, an activist and head of Centre for Social Equity and Inclusion
Aboobacker Ahmad, vice-president of Muslim Education Society, Kerala.
Status of Implementation 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 Haryana Government has assigned the duties
and responsibilities to Block Elementary Education Officers–cum–Block Resource Coordinators
for effective implementation and continuous monitoring of implementation of Right to Education
Act in the State. Precedents
It has been pointed out that the RTE act is not new. Universal adult franchise in the
act was opposed since most of the population was illiterate. Article 45 in the Constitution
of India was set up as an act: The State shall endeavour to provide, within
a period of ten years from the commencement of this Constitution, for free and compulsory
education for all children until they complete the age of fourteen years.
As that deadline was about to be passed many decades ago, the education minister at the
time, M C Chagla, memorably said: Our Constitution fathers did not intend that
we just set up hovels, put students there, give untrained teachers, give them bad textbooks,
no playgrounds, and say, we have complied with Article 45 and primary education is expanding...
They meant that real education should be given to our children between the ages of 6 and
14 – M.C. Chagla, 1964 In the 1990s, the World Bank funded a number
of measures to set up schools within easy reach of rural communities. This effort was
consolidated in the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan model in the 1990s. RTE takes the process
further, and makes the enrolment of children in schools a state prerogative.
Criticism The act has been criticised for being hastily-drafted,
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 criticised for being ineffective and corruption-ridden.
Quality of education The quality of education provided by the government
system is not good. While it remains the largest provider of elementary education in the country
forming 80% of all recognised schools, it suffers from shortages of teachers, infrastructural
gaps and several habitations continue to lack schools altogether. There are also frequent
allegations of government schools being riddled with absenteeism and mismanagement and appointments
are based on political convenience. Despite the allure of free lunch-food in the government
schools, many parents send their children to private schools. Average schoolteacher
salaries in private rural schools in some States are considerably lower than that in
government schools. As a result, proponents of low cost private schools, critiqued government
schools as being poor value for money. Children attending the private schools are
seen to be at an advantage, thus discriminating against the weakest sections, who are forced
to go to government schools. Furthermore, the system has been criticised as catering
to the rural elites who are able to afford school fees in a country where large number
of families live in absolute poverty. The act has been criticised as discriminatory
for not addressing these issues. Well-known educationist Anil Sadagopal said of the hurriedly-drafted
act: It is a fraud on our children. It gives neither
free education nor compulsory education. In fact, it only legitimises the present multi-layered,
inferior quality school education system where discrimination shall continue to prevail.
Entrepreneur Gurcharan Das noted that 54% of urban children attend private schools,
and this rate is growing at 3% per year. "Even the poor children are abandoning the government
schools. They are leaving because the teachers are not showing up." However, other researchers
have countered the argument by citing that the evidence for higher standards of quality
in private schools often disappears when other factors are controlled for.
Public-private partnership To address these quality issues, the Act has
provisions for compensating private schools for admission of children under the 25% quota
which has been compared to school vouchers, whereby parents may "send" their children
in any school, private or public. This measure, along with the increase in PPP has been viewed
by some organisations such as the All-India Forum for Right to Education, as the state
abdicating its "constitutional obligation towards providing elementary education".
Infringement on private schools RTE Act In September 2012, the Supreme Court
subsequently declined a review petion of the Act.
Barrier for orphans The Act provides for admission of children
without any certification. However, several states have continued pre-existing procedures
insisting that children produce income and caste certificates, BPL cards and birth certificates.
Orphan children are often unable to produce such documents, even though they are willing
to do so. As a result, schools are not admitting them, as they require the documents as a condition
to admission. Admissions
Though Govt says economically backward children are admitted in to private schools under RTE,
but the fact is in the states like Andhra Pradesh, Children are admitted in to private
schools based on caste based reservations. check page 9 and Point no 4 of this below
document References
External links Highlights of the Bill introduced in the Parliament
2010 Amendment to the Act 2010 Right to Education India website
Download fFull contents of the act PDF