Gobar Times Magazine (Environment for Kids Monthly) - Centre for Science and Environment

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ECOLOGICAL LITERACY

Munnu’s way to school

Scene: A shanty settlement in a city...

Hari (to his wife Suman) – Listen! Today, when I was driving the Saheb down to the office, he told me that the Government is making new rules. Now our Munnu could also go to the same school as Saheb’s son!

Suman - Haan Haan, that is alright. But even if we get him admitted to the big school, how will we ever pay the fees every month? We do not even have his birth certificate!

Hari - This is what I asked Saheb too. And he told me that the Government will pay the fees for children like our Munnu, and they will not even need any paper!

For Munnu and his family, the clearing of the Right to Education Bill by the Cabinet seems like a momentous occasion. But, it still needs to be passed by the Parliament.

For now, let’s see what the bill means for us, particularly for the 19.8 crore children in the age group of 6-14 years whom the bill targets.

The Right to Education Bill

The bill makes education for children between 6 and 14 years not only free but also compulsory. It will be the responsibility of both the state and the centre to make sure that that every child goes to school.
In all private and government aided school 25 per cent of student will be from poor families in the vicinity of the school.
For such children who will study under this provision, the government will bear the expenses incurred by the school. But it will not pay an additional fee.
The process of admission will be made simpler. For instance, children will not be denied admission if their parents cannot produce a birth certificate. Or that parents and children will not be interviewed, as a part of the admission process.
To maintain quality of education, the bill bans government school teachers from taking private tuitions and relieves them from taking on extra duties except election duties.
It also makes way for a regulatory body, like School Management Committees in government and aided school, which will monitor quality of education within the school.
All traditional educational structures and non-formal schools will have to seek recognition.

Did you know?

There are 19.8 crore children between the age group of 6-14 years in India.
The Government spends about Rs 1,700 for the education of a child, while private schools spend Rs 1,100.
The passing of the Bill will raise the spending of the Government on education by Rs 12,000 crores.
Government-aided schools form a big chunk of primary schools. They constitute 60 per cent of primary schools in Kerala and 20 per cent in Tamil Nadu.

The Gobar Times team spoke to experts in the field of school education to find out what they feel about the bill:

Indu Khetrapal, Director of Salwan Public School, Gurgaon, feels, “Free and compulsory education for children from 6-14 years is definitely very progressive. Private schools must open the doors for students from the underprivileged section of the society. But, such a venture does have grave administrative and psychological repercussions. I believe that though the Education Bill claims to be a Public Private Partnership (PPP), it is quite far-fetched. One cannot palm responsibility to the public enterprise because previous strategies adopted have erred. Government schools have taken a substantial part of nations exchequer and they have to improve drastically rather than shirking responsibility”. She welcomes the initiative of doing away with assessment before admission but feels that birth certificate, as criteria for identification should be retained.

Sharat Chandran, Director of Kerala Public School (KPS), Jamshedpur, also welcomes the move to make education free and compulsory for all children.

Why do we need a Right to Education bill?

The adult literacy rate in India was about 61 per cent between 2000-2005.
In 2001, the drop-out rates in the primary school level was about 39 per cent.
In the year 2005, there were about 39 million children who were out of school in India.
The rate at which children drop out of school decreased by only two per cent in the decade 1990-2001, inspite of the government spending Rs 15,588 crores under the Ninth Five Year Plan on elementary education.
India has one of the highest pupil-teacher ratios in the world. According to a UNESCO report in 2005, it stands at one teacher for 44 children in the primary level.

But even though KPS has opened its doors to children who cannot afford to pay fees through an afternoon school, he feels that under the garb of PPP the government is trying to pass on its responsibilities to the private players. While testing and examinations for admission to nursery in his school is not compulsory, he feels that one must not do away with testing as a criterion for admitting children into higher classes.

However, all said and done, will Munnu ever find his way into the fancy gates of the private school? Suman’s pessimism is probably not baseless.

Even though the cabinet has cleared the bill, this is not the time to rejoice because if it is not passed by the Parliament in a couple of months, there is a possibility that it will not see the light of day at all. Since elections are approaching, the Legislation itself might be sidelined. And if the government at the Centre changes then the bill might have to be considered afresh!

Sixty years have gone by since the amendment of the Constitution. If we do not quicken our pace, Munnu and his parents may continue battling with the same issues for another sixty.

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eeu@cseindia.org or write to

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