Education gets the right focus

The New Indian Express
First Published : 02 Apr 2010 12:30:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 02 Apr 2010 12:55:40 AM IST

The Right to Education Act that has come into force from Thursday is aimed at nothing short of a revolution in education. It guarantees free and compulsory education up to Class VII for all the children in the age group of six to 14. To be implemented over a 12-year period, the Act will ensure that no child in that age group remains out of the school system and is thus deprived of the benefits of education. However welcome the Act is, there are many conditions to be fulfilled for the success of this enabling provision. The immediate challenge is to bring back into the education system 8.1 million children who had either gone out of it or had never been enrolled in a school. In other words, the reasons that kept them out of school will have to be addressed quickly. The new education year begins with a projected deficit of Rs 7,000 crore, a gargantuan sum the Centre and the states will have to raise if they are serious about the RTE. Infrastructure deficiencies and lack of trained teachers need to be attended to on a war-footing.

While every private school has to earmark 25 per cent seats for poor children, whose fees will be paid by the government on certain conditions, there are many areas in the country where there is no school for several kilometres. When lakhs of vacancies of teachers remain unfilled in many states, it is too much to expect countless one or two-teacher schools to fulfil the needs of the newcomers. The Act stipulates that no student will ever be detained in a class or expelled for academic reasons but this, in turn, will result in students getting promoted to higher classes without a proper grounding in various subjects. A recent study by Amartya Sen’s Pratichi Trust found that a majority of students in primary schools were unable to cope with the syllabus without the benefit of private tuition. Ideally, teaching should be completed in the school itself and there should be no need for homework. But because the curriculum is heavy and the teachers cannot complete it in the classrooms, private tuition becomes a necessary evil. The victims are the poor who cannot afford to have tuition. If, as the prime minister says, financial constraints will not be a hindrance, the Act can help remove the bane of illiteracy from the country, provided everything is in place for its successful implementation.