(Author’s Note: This mini-series of four parts is intended to be the college debaters’ view of the two new Laws introduced by the Government, namely the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act and the Women’s Reservation Bill. Parts 1 and 2 will deal with the former, while Parts 3 and 4 will focus on the latter.)

“The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act” – (II)

The bold step of Union HRD Minister, Kapil Sibal to ensure the passing of the Right of children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill is, definitely, one that inspires applause. The realisation of this age old concept is something India needed badly for progressing as a complete nation, since the goal of universal elementary education has remained elusive for six decades. Yet, the Act does not stand clear of anomalies and ambiguities, which needed to be considered properly before its enactment. One of the primary concerns lies in the overtly boastful manner in which the Bill was drafted. Many fundamental areas have been overlooked, or given less importance to. This instance of the series will take a very critical stand towards the Act, pointing out its various anomalies and negligence of some fundamental issues. Six main problems have been pointed out and a few suggestions have been made in that context.

The children in the age group of 0 – 6

To be completely indifferent to the formative years of a child’s development is not something that the Government of India is expected of, given that it is a signatory of Convention of Rights of Children, which provides for nutrition, health and early education for children of age between 0 and 14. This is also in contradiction to India’s own commitment at the Jomtien Conference (1990), acknowledging expansion of early childhood care and development activities as an integral part of the ‘Education for All’ objectives. To say the least, this careless omission of the younger age group dents Sibal’s boast of having realised the historic Unnikrishnan judgement (1993) of the Supreme Court giving children of ages 0-14 the right to education. It is needless to emphasise that even without the obligations listed above, the Government of India has the moral responsibility of giving the younger section more importance as the early years are more critical in the development of a lifelong personality than the later years.

A side-effect of this omission is that the girl child is deprived of availing the full extent of her right. This is because it is usual that the girl is asked to skip school to take care of the younger ones. Though the Government will not accept this, it is common sense that such things will occur and even the strongest Government cannot remove this possibility completely.

2.   Quality of Education

The Act allows for “equitable quality of education” without properly having defined the “equitable” part. It specifies norms for physical infrastructure (school campus, teachers, toilets, etc.) but makes no mention of norms for other parameters which equally affect the quality of education in a school. These include pedagogy, linguistics, socio-cultural and proper co-curricular activities. Equitable quality throughout all schools also calls for normalisation of these factors as well.

The Act mandates that no child be held back in a class or be expelled before Class 8. Although well meant, it has not considered the fact that children will not study, if they have no fear of detention or expulsion for their academic performance, or rather, the lack of it.

3.   Children with disabilities

The Act mandates that children with ‘severe or profound disability, (who) cannot be provided elementary education in a neighbourhood school, shall have the right to be provided education in an appropriate alternative environment as may be prescribed.’ This is against the principle of ‘inclusion’ and does not put the onus on the education system to meet individual needs of children. Whereas, the Act has detailed the norms required of a school (teacher-pupil ratio, buildings etc.), it is silent on the facilities needed to enable children with disabilities to attend school (such as ramps, Braille readers, etc.). In this Bill, ‘disability’ has the meaning assigned by the Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995, which does not include such other disabilities as defined by the National Trust Act, 1999 (autism and cerebral palsy).

4.   Private Schools

The Private schools and the children studying in them face the brunt of the Act. The private schools not only have to reserve 25% of their seats for the financially weak section by displacing the presently enrolled students, the students making the rest 75% will have to pay for the education of these 25% (the fees will go up no doubt, as the act allows the private schools to fix their own rates). Further it is also estimated that the parents who dare send their children to private schools for better education would be charged 33% extra tax.

Private schools are required to get recognition after fulfilling various infrastructure norms whereas government schools are automatically recognised. This means that a government school can function in open or from a tent and still be recognised, but a private school has to have the entire infrastructure to be recognised. There is no guarantee that even then the “competent authority” will not turn corrupt and there will be an “inspector raj” in the education sphere as well.  

It is quite clear that instead of improving the quality of its own schools the Government is simply penalising the private schools for being better at educating the future of the nation. 

5.   Teachers

The Act has not provided any mechanism for overcoming the existing shortcomings of the institutional structures for teachers’ training and innovation. The Act is also silent on how it is going to overcome the shortage of teachers, leave apart qualified teachers. The country already faces a shortage of eight lakh teachers in primary and middle schools. As per the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA) study, “In the desperation to churn out teachers in large numbers, little attention is being paid to their qualifications. About a quarter of all teachers taking Classes I to VIII have, themselves, studied only till the secondary stage. Another quarter has studied up to the senior secondary stage. So, educational qualification of almost half of all teachers is senior secondary or below. 

6.   Moving the court

Provided that the Act is made free of all the above mentioned lacunae, one major problem will linger almost forever. The Act is targeted at putting all the children of the country through a proper schooling. Supposing that the parents of a particular child are unwilling to send their child to school, there is no way the child can have education. For one thing, he would obviously be unaware of any such law and second, he cannot move court even if he has the knowledge. The Act fails to provide any serious approach towards this problem, except for stating a duty of the appropriate government to ensure compulsory education.

Some suggestions:

1.    The first one is simple: include the children of ages 0 to 6. A comprehensive approach towards building a sound pre-primary education system is as important as allowing free and compulsory education.

2.   For improving the quality of education everywhere and keeping it equitable, the Government should issue mandates requiring all government schools to achieve the standards of Kendriya Vidyalayas within a stipulated time period. The financial aspects thereof can be handled by the appropriate government.

3.   The no-detention policy needs to be revised. There should be proper passing criteria for students depending upon their overall development. A common board or committee should be setup to monitor and supervise the improvement of the quality of education provided in the schools.

4.   Proper normalisation of infrastructure in institutions proving education for the ‘disabled children’ is required. A government board monitoring these institutions can be the first step in this direction. Moreover the definition of ‘disabled’ should be extended to include those enlisted in the National Trust Act (1999). Training of teachers for these institutions is another necessary step.

5.   Unaided Private schools should be given functional autonomy to manage the school and be accountable only for the quality of education.

6.   Instead of having reservations for the financially weak children in private unaided schools, the government can easily accommodate them in schools that are under its direct control.

7.   All schools functioning today, including those run by the government, need to fulfil the necessary standards to get accreditation. Exclusion of some schools is not acceptable.

8.   Before derecognising any school, the Government should make a proper inquiry into the quality of the education provided by the school with the limited infrastructure that it has. In case the school needs better infrastructure, the Government could lend a helping hand in improving it instead of scrapping it altogether.

9.   Training of teachers on a large scale is going to be the most difficult task. Given the shortage of teachers, the Government should look into making the teaching profession “glamorous” (used for the lack of any proper word). Better salary structures, added incentives, annual achievement awards are a few things that can be tried out.

10  A clear redressal system needs to be provided.

The college debater agrees that these suggestions are not without faults. Some suggestions are outright demands to amend major sections of the new Act. But one need emphasise that incorporation of some of these suggestions may actually make the implementation of the Act more viable. Saluting the overall commitment of the Parliament, the college debater is critical of the Act in order to provide constructive input to the System. Regardless of some of the lacunae of the Act, the major part is worth applause. May the new law set the foundation of a better educated India in the years to come.

(Author’s Note:  Comments on the criticism and suggestions are welcome. In case you feel the need to discuss extensively in this regard, please, join the group discussion forum. The next instance of this series will feature the Women’s Reservation Bill, if it Lok Sabha decides to pass it though. In case the Bill does not get passed, the next instance will try to assess the Bill and the reasons for its refusal.)

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