After being buried in the HRD ministry and tossed between the finance and law ministries and the Planning Commission for over four years, the Right to Education Bill, 2008 which will give effect to Article 21A of the Constitution of India (viz. “the State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years in such manner as the State may by law determine”), has been once again referred by the Union cabinet to a group of ministers for deliberation. Currently in its seventh draft, national consensus has eluded the Bill, with education NGOs, civil society groups, teachers’ associations and representative organisations of private schools and government-aided schools opposing various provisions. EducationWorld highlights major lacunae of RTE Bill, 2008:
• There is no provision in the Bill to compel the State to provide adequate funds for providing elementary education to 160 million out-of-school children.
• The Bill dilutes the fundamental right of children below six years of age to nutrition, health and pre-primary education by equating it with ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services).
• It denies children the right to secondary and senior secondary education.
• The Bill discriminates against government school children as their teachers will still be deployed for census, elections and disaster relief duties.
• It provides for government to reimburse only tuition expenses of poor children enrolled in private schools. There is no provision for reimbursement of other fees (eg. art and craft, sports, excursion fees, etc), which are levied by most private schools.
• Contains subtle provisions that exclude disabled children from elementary schools.
• Lacks guarantee of dignified salaries, professional development, promo-tional avenues and social security for teachers and prevention of fragmentation of teachers’ cadre.
• The Bill doesn’t indicate how the chairperson and office bearers of the School Management Committees (SMCs) will be elected. In many states local MLAs and MPs become chairpersons of SMCs in their ex officio capacity. This lies at the root of several of the abuses to which government schools are subjected.
• In the schedule of the Bill detailing norms and standards for a school, norms which all schools must follow for installing teaching learning equipment, library, play material, games and sports equipment are not prescribed.
• The Bill says that the State shall ensure that “children in schools receive education of equitable quality”. This provision has no value unless the term “equitable quality” is defined.