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“Inclusion is a right, not a privilege for a select few”
-Judge geary (Oberti v Board of education)
The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 was passed by Parliament which came into force on 1st April, 2010with an objective to improve the quality of education and free access to education for children belonging to different classes.A decade has passed and the hastily drafted act with a late implementation of its provisions has resulted in failure of the child rights. Its decipherable foundation has created many loopholes and political profit machinery.
One of the most exploited section i.e. Sec 12 as RTE made it compulsory for private schools to make it mandatory t reserve 25% of the seats for the disadvantaged children but on the contrary it resulted in the closing of many schools and deprived millions of the children. In a recent sting operation it was found these seats are sold inlakhs to those parents who are financially abled and they are ready at any stake because they have less option available for quality education.
Even Sec 18 which makes it compulsory for school to have a infrastructure to have licence and there has to be a requisite ratio of teachers and students and its absence results in closing of schools as sec 19 grants power to state government to curb the licence of such schools on failure to abide by it. More clauses have been added to make the already existing licence raj system difficult as the government has to show the growth of government schools and its working but parents however still prefers the private schools as they have better working conditions and also students are migrate from public to private.
And the figure in 2015-2016 is such that many students are migrated and near about 10 students have enrolled in schools which resulted in closing of 24000 schools in these states. Thus to avoid incompetence or embarrassment government closes many private schools which cannot get licence as the it’s not possible to afford requisite infrastructure especially in urban areas and thus students again left with no options migrate from private to public.
It’s been a decade and many provisions had limitation for its implementation of its various provisions as sec 23(2) set the limitation to be 5 years for teachers to have basic qualification but recently the deadline, for training of all teachers to acquire the minimum qualifications prescribed by the academic authority extended to 31st March, 2019. Eventually it results in unskilled or inefficient human capital and adds to already unemployed population.
Sec 6 of RTI already makes it obligatory for all government to open public schools in all localities. Thus choosing to open more such unproductive, inefficient schools which are already parent’s last choice
Official data from U-DISE: 2010 to 2016Enrolment in public elementary schools fell by 1.8 crore. Average enrolment fell from 122 to a mere 103 pupils per government school. Number of 'small' government schools (those with a total enrolment 50 or fewer students rose from 3,13,169 to 4,17,193). The average school size in these 4.17 lakh schools was a mere 28 students per school. Thus a waste of the financial resources and the right to education in general.
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