Sidhartha Shankar Mishra
Education system plays a significant role in shaping the future of children of a country. A sustainable and effective education system nurtures all the qualities of a child to become a resourceful citizen in future life.
To become an economic super power, India needs to create opportunities to trap the unutilized and/or underutilized human resources for capacity building. An education system, which is capable of fostering the innate qualities of the students, is what India needs most now.
Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal termed the Act a “national enterprise that would help shapes India’s future”. The legislation would not only ensure every child’s right to education, but puts the obligation on the Government to impart it. The law would not interfere with the various state governments attempts to provide elementary education. On the medium of instruction, there is a provision to provide elementary education, as far as possible, in the mother tongue of the child. The law would ensure that the child got free, compulsory and quality education by qualified teachers.
As the curriculum would be less rigorous, it would ensure all-round development of children. On infrastructure, there is a provision for establishing recognition authority in every State under which all schools would have to fulfill the minimum requirement of infrastructure within three years. Otherwise, they would lose recognition. Similarly appointment of teachers had to be approved by the academic committee.
The law has come as a boon to India and is expected to be a big boost to children’s education as out of every 100 children attending elementary school only 12 reached the graduation level compared to the global average of 27. In Europe it was 50-70 students reaching college from the elementary level. The HRD Ministry expects that the law would increase India’s average to 15 by 2012 and to 30-35 by 2020.
To meet the growing need of a vibrant and dynamic education system, the Government of India has implemented ambitious Right to Education Act (REA) in 1 April, 2010. This Act actually mandates the overhaul of school curricula and traditional examination procedures drastically.
With the enactment of the Right to Education Act (REA), all the children between the ages of 6 and 14 are eligible to get opportunity of free and compulsory elementary education. The Act aims at expansion, inclusion and excellence of education system to help the children of the country to blossom into enlightened personalities.
As per the new law, the schools need to have certain minimum facilities like adequate teachers, playground and infrastructure. The Government will evolve some mechanism to help marginalized schools complying with the provisions of the Act. The Finance Commission has provided Rs.25,000 crore to the states for implementation of the Act. As per the government’s estimate, there will be a requirement of Rs. 1.71 lakh crore in the next five years for implementation of the Act.
Special attention has been paid in outlining the school curriculum and evaluation procedure. Maintaining conformity with the values enshrined in the Constitution, curricula are to be designed focusing into all round physical and mental development of a child. Efforts to build up knowledge, potentiality and talent of a child through educational activities, explorations and discoveries in a child friendly and child-centric manner have been emphasized. One of the important tasks of the teachers is making child free of fear, trauma and anxiety and helping him expressing his views freely. The REA prohibits private tuition and mandates comprehensive and continuous evaluation of child understands of knowledge and his/her ability the same.
The children have legal rights as the constitutional amendment Act describes. Interesting fact is that crores of children have not seen school and so they are devoid of fundamental rights. Thus Government is breaching the legal rights of children. Who cares!
Government did its job of enlisting it in the Constitution. Leaders don’t have enough time to ponder over any issue (except vote bank management issues). Administrators don’t bother themselves to think at large as they remain sure of no deduction in salary for underperformance. And the beneficiaries themselves do not know if they have any right, whatsoever.
Right to Education Act provides some measures to impart education to all: such as; the poor and unprivileged children, especially schedule caste, schedule tribe and physically challenged, will get admission to private schools as 25 percent seats will be reserved for them in those schools. To restrain drop-outs there has been measures. There will be no physical punishment, no interview or test at the time of admission; no one will be failed in the examination in any circumstances till eighth standard. But still the Act has some measure flaws: such as; the same provisions for private and public schools, confusion over distribution of financial responsibilities between State and Center.
It is mentioned in the Act that there must be some reform in qualities of education. But if schools’ infrastructure and facilities vary hugely and if there is such a huge gap between schools, how would anyone think of bringing quality whatsoever.
My question is why are people still being deprived of one right that the United Nations (UN) representatives from every country has promised the whole world? 115 million primary school aged children do not go to school and that could be from a choice to not go or a restriction and the UN is supposed to end all of the restrictions so we can have a better, smarter, and more educated world.
Some reasons I have came up with are because they do not want to go to school or because there are not enough teachers. Another reason is because they get their education somewhere else, because they are needed to work at home, or because they cannot afford to go to school. Also because they do not need an education, because they need to work to earn money for their family, or because there are not schools near where they live. Another reason is because there are not enough schools or because it is more important to educate boys/girls. I do not think any of these ten reasons are acceptable.
We are all entitled to an education and because a family does not have enough money for school or because there are not schools near where they live should not be an excuse. If the UN meant for us all to have an education, why do we have to pay for it when some people cannot? School is not the only type of education but anyone who wants it is supposed to get it. It seems like the Government or United Nations could help out families who cannot afford it or people who are having other difficulties with school.
I think a solution to this issue would be for the United Nations to start a program for families that are not able to send their children for school or go to school for whatever reason. There could be volunteer workers who raise money for families so they could go to school, or raise money to make a new school, or they could raise money to buy more materials for a school.
Why do we have to go to school? Well because it is the best option for your future. What would you prefer, without much education you will end up working 50 hour weeks while the other person who has a better education is making more money in half the time, Because those clothes and bills aren’t going to pay themselves and because the new clothes and the new life isn’t going to be greeting you with money. Once married or left alone outside your mothers house, you are all on your own, and if you plan on living somewhere cozy, then I suggest getting a job to pay all those bills which you will be receiving for you and your life. Education is the key role in life and it is what makes a person who he is.
Education is what shows the people surrounding you, your occupation that can then slowly lead to your likes and dislikes. The better options the Man/Woman has, the more chances you have on finding the right person in your life. Education is the seed of life, without it, you are unable to take life to its max, to go further than beyond, to live life to the fullest.
Going through these facets of the RTE, where we find this Act counting on superbly. Right from the beginning, it has been scoring low on all fronts. The Right has been given to children but there’s hardly anyone who is benefiting from it.
We must understand the failure of the contemporary system of education, the growing frustration of the Indian youth and the apathy shown towards the natural talents.
The irony of the present education system is that it provides clues to earn a living without teaching the art of living. Restructuring the system is essential to motivate the students in right direction. The atmosphere in most of the institutions today breeds insecurity and frustration. Our youth certainly do not deserve to be trapped in negative emotions.
Everyone deserves the right to education, and not everyone is getting it, so why not ask for it now? CNF
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