Education not for all

Chetna, an eight-year-old girl  joined Class I in Lilawati Public School last year under the aegis of the Right to Education (RTE) Act. Her father, Sanjay Kumar, a bicycle mechanic in Pratap Nagar, east Delhi, was naturally excited when RTE was introduced: after all it is not every day that the government notifies free compulsory education for poor children.

His joy, however, turned to horror when he realised the school was demanding a monthly fee of Rs 500, flouting rules. Despite several meetings with the school authorities, Sanjay (monthly income: Rs 4000) could not afford his daughter's education and she had to drop out.

India's cities and towns have millions of Chetnas. Clearly, mouthing platitudes in favour of education for impoverished children is one thing. To implement it on the ground is another. In India, plans approved on paper often do not reach the intended recipient. RTE, an idea whose time has come, is also getting stalled on one flimsy ground or the other.

Armed with the most sophisticated legislation, the fear that RTE 2009 would become a structure without a reliable backbone, is gaining ground. When introduced, the Act was hailed as a historic first. A year on, despite the best efforts of some officials to push through its implementation, indifferent responses from state governments have slowed down a process which has the potential of changing India's face. Says Shanta Sinha, chairperson of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), “A year is not a small time. Much could have been done on the ground. At least the states could have notified the rules to implement the Act. But most states have not done this.”

As of now, the Act which makes education compulsory for all children in the 6-14 age group hasn't found too many takers. Only six states and the seven Union Territories have notified the Act. The six  that have framed model rules to implement the Act are Sikkim, Orissa, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan.

The NCPCR, which has been mandated with monitoring the implementation of the Act in the states, has no presence in most states. A fact-finding survey conducted by the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), a globally-recognised NGO, has come up with some interesting findings. According to it, children in the 8 to 14 age group, who have featured as enrolled students in Darbhanga, Bihar, are actually working as bonded labourers in Delhi.

"We came across many such cases while conducting public hearings in Delhi. We have reached the conclusion that 25 per cent of all children are still out of school,'' says Kailash Satyarthi, founder of BBA and a veteran of many campaigns.

State governments haven't shown the  necessary political will. Orissa State Secondary Teachers Association (OSSTA) general secretary Kishor Kumar Panda told TSI, “The RTE situation  in Orissa is very gloomy.” Ironically, the Orissa government is quite willing to accept this harsh reality. Says Pratap Jena, minister of school and mass education, “Though six months have gone by RTE was notified in Orissa, its real implementation has been tardy.'' He is, however, more than happy to pass the buck. “The Centre has not sanctioned a single penny and we tried to do our best despite lack of resources.”

So-called developed states like Kerala, too, have a little downside. According to its critics, the Act is not just concerned with universal education, it also emphasises quality of education. That has become a problem for a doctrinaire state government like Kerala which has constituted a committee headed by Lida Jacob to 'examine' the problem area. 

The committee submitted its report in December 2010. It has proposed greater powers to school management committees in day-to-day running of schools and in preparing school development plans. The state has, however, done nothing to implement its recommendations. The status of implementation of the Act in Karnataka, among the frontrunner states, remains far from satisfactory. Even after the state government announced its interest and intent for implementing the act, the benefits have remained on paper. Says Vasudev Sharma of NCPCR, “We have a large scarcity of manpower and funds. We don’t even have regional or district branches to reach the grassroots."

Private schools, on the other hand, have openly told government that they are in no mood to provide free education to poor children – indeed it is not their job to do so.

Funding remains a huge concern. Officials say the HRD ministry had asked for Rs 34,000 crore to fund RTE implementation, but has got only Rs 21,000 crores. Ambarish Rai, spokesperson for the Right to Education Forum, says: "SCPCRs have only been set up in half the states and where they do exist, they are sometimes manned by only one person and they are not always independent of Government.” Even more disconcerting: the national teacher shortage is estimated to be 14 lakh; states like Uttar Pradesh have over 2 lakh vacancies,  and eight states have less than 50 per cent teachers who are professionally qualified.

RTE requires recruitment of teachers through the Teacher Eligibility Test. Bihar is deficient in this department and has asked the Centre for eligibility concessions. Officials say that 36 Primary Teacher Training Institutes in the state churn out only 3,000 candidates a year, a tiny figure for a state like Bihar with a population of about nine crore.