Right To Education

More than six decades after Independence, the Indian government has cleared the Right to Education Bill that makes free and compulsory education a fundamental right for all children between the ages of 6 and 14

It promises free and compulsory education to every child. The move should provide a much needed boost to the country’s education sector.

Key provisions of the Bill include:

* 25% reservation in private schools for disadvantaged children from the neighbourhood, at the entry level. The government will reimburse expenditure incurred by schools.
* No donation or capitation fee on admission.
* No interviewing the child or parents as part of the screening process.

The Bill also prohibits physical punishment, expulsion or detention of a child, and deployment of teachers for non-educational purposes other than census or election duty and disaster relief. Running a school without recognition will attract penal action.

Observing that it was an important promise to children, as education would become a fundamental right, India’s Finance Minister P Chidambaram said that it would be the legally enforceable duty of the Centre and the states to provide free and compulsory education.

He added that the human resources ministry would release the text of the Bill after consulting the Election Commission, in view of assembly polls in some states.

The Right to Education Bill is the enabling legislation to notify the 86th constitutional amendment that gives every child between the age of six and 14 the right to free and compulsory education. But it has been 61 years in the making.

In 1937, when Mahatma Gandhi voiced the need for universal education he met with the same stonewalling about cost that dogs the issue today. The Constitution left it as a vague plea to the State to “endeavour to provide free and compulsory education to all children up to age 14”, but access to elementary school still remains elusive today.

The draft Bill aims to provide elementary schools in every neighbourhood within three years -- though the word “school” encompasses a whole spectrum of structures. A set of minimum norms have been worked out as there’s the usual barrier of paperwork in remote rural and poor urban areas. The State is also obliged to tide over any financial compulsions that may keep a child out of school.