INTRODUCTION:

Elementary education is the fundamental education for every child in India. Elementary education is meant for childhood stage of development. The main function of elementary education is to impart 3 R’s, i.e. reading, writing and arithmetic. It forms the basis of secondary school education.

Universal elementary education means providing education to every child of the country. Elementary education is a fundamental need of life and its development. Education is a birth right of every child which must be ensured by the state or the central government. Elementary education is the minimum education for an individual which helps in the removal of the darkness and illiteracy from his life. It makes man capable of reading and writing and knowing the environment in which he lives. It enables him to make proper adjustment and progressive development with society. This education can identify and unfold the native potentialities of an individual for development. It can help in the effective use of the human and natural resources of a country. Therefore, it becomes the obligatory duty and bounded responsibility of the government of a welfare state to make this education available to every child. The landmark passing of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 marks a historic moment for the children of India. For the first time in India’s history, Children will be guaranteed their right to quality elementary education by the state with the help of families and communities. All children between the ages of 6 and 14 shall have the right to free and compulsory elementary education at a neighborhood school.

Objectives of the Study:

The present paper is designed with the following basic objectives.

1. The main objective of the paper is to study about the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009; and

2. Another objective of the paper is to study about implementation of RTE Act for the children’s elementary education in India.

Materials and Methods:

The present paper is an analytical and descriptive one. The paper is basically compiled with the help of various secondary sources like- News Papers, Magazines, Books, Journals, and Official Gazettes, and Web Pages etc.

Discussion:

The discussion regarding elementary education in India and RTE Act and its implementation is divided into two parts as (A) The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 and (B) RTE Act and Its Implementation in the field of Elementary Education in India.

A. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009:

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 is an act to provide for free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years. It includes the following chapters:

Chapter-l- Preliminary:

· “Appropriate Government” means (i) in relation to a school established, owned or controlled by the Central Government, or the administrator of the Union territory, having no legislature, the Central Government; (ii) in relation to a school established within the territory of (A) a State, the State Government; (B) a Union territory having legislature, the Government of that Union territory.

· “Child” means a male or female child of the age of six to fourteen years;

· “Child belonging to disadvantaged group” means a child belonging to the Scheduled Caste, the Scheduled Tribe, the socially and educationally backward class or such other group having disadvantage owing to social, cultural, economical, geographical, linguistic, gender or such other factor as may be specified by the appropriate Government;

· “Child belonging to weaker section” means a child belonging to such parent or guardian whose annual income is lower than the minimum limit specified by the appropriate Government;

· “Elementary education” means the education from first class to eight class;

· “Local authority” means a Municipal Corporation or Municipal Council or ZHa Parishad or Nagar Panchayat or Panchayat, by whatever name called, and includes such other authority or body having administrative control over the school or empowered by or under any law for the time being in force to function as a local authority in any city, town or village;

· “National Commission for Protection of Child Rights” means the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights constituted under section 3 of the Commissions for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005;

· “State Commission for Protection of Child Rights” means the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights constituted under section 3 of the Commission for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005.

Chapter-II-Right to Free and Compulsory Education:

· Every child of the age of six to fourteen years shall have a right to free and compulsory education in a neighborhood school till completion of elementary education. The government will provide schooling free-of-cost until a child’s elementary education is completed;

· Where a child above six years of age has not been admitted in any school or though admitted, could not complete his or her elementary education, then, he or she shall be admitted in a class appropriate to his or her age;

· Where in a school, there is no provision for completion of elementary education, a child shall have a right to seek transfer to any other school and for seeking admission in such other school, the Head-teacher or in-charge of the school where such child was last admitted, shall immediately issue the transfer certificate.

Chapter-III-Duties of Appropriate Government, Local Authority and Parents:

· For carrying out the provisions of the Act, the appropriate Government and the local authority shall establish, within such area or limits of neighborhood, as may be prescribed, a school, where it is not so established, within period of three years from the commencement of the Act;

· Central and state governments shall share financial responsibility for RTE. The central government shall prepare estimates of expenditures. State governments will be provided a percentage of these costs;

· The central government may request the Finance Commission to consider providing additional resources to a state in order to carry out the provision of RTE;

· The Central Government shall develop a framework of national curriculum with the help of academic authority.

· The Central Government shall develop and enforce standards for training of teachers;

· The state government shall be responsible for providing the remaining funds needed to implement. There will be a funding gap which needs to be supported by partners from civil society, development agencies, corporate organizations and citizens of the country;

· The appropriate Government and every local authority shall provide free and compulsory elementary education to every child;

· It shall be the duty of every parent or guardian to admit or cause to be admitted his or her child or ward, as the case may be, to an elementary education in the neighborhood school;

· With a view to prepare children above the age of three years for elementary education and to provide early childhood care and education for all children until they complete the age of six years, the appropriate Government may make necessary arrangement for providing free-school education for such children.

Chapter-IV-Responsibilities of Schools and Teachers:

· No school or person shall, while admitting a child, collect any capitation fee and subject the child or his or her parents or guardian to any screening procedure;

· For the purposes of admission to elementary education, the age of a child shall be determined on the basis of the birth certificate issued in accordance with the provisions of the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act, 1886 or on the basis of such other document, as may be prescribed;

· No child shall be denied admission in a school for lack of age proof.

· No child admitted in a school shall be held back in any class or expelled from school till the completion of elementary education;

· No child shall be subjected to physical punishment or mental harassment.

· A school shall constitute School Management Committee consisting of the elected representatives of the local authority, parents or guardians of children admitted in such school and teachers.

· The School Management Committee shall form School Development Plans and monitor the utilization of government grants and the whole school environment;

· The School Management Committee shall ensure availability of adequate classrooms, safe drinking water, sufficient toilets, play ground and playing materials, seating arrangement, proper teaching learning materials, library facility, cooked midday meal, clean and hygienic school campus.

· A teacher shall maintain regularity and punctuality in attending school.

· No teacher shall engage himself or herself in private tuition or private teaching activity.

Chapter-V-Curriculum and Completion of Elementary Education:

· The curriculum and the evaluation procedure for elementary education shall be laid down by an academic authority to be specified by the appropriate Government, by notification;

· The academic authority, while laying down the curriculum and the evaluation procedure shall take into consideration the aspects: all round development of the child; medium of instructions shall, as far as practicable, be in child’s mother tongue; making the child free of fear, trauma and anxiety and helping the child to express views freely;

· The academic authority shall ensure that teaching learning process is based on the learning ability of each child and adopt Comprehensive and Continuous Evaluation procedure.

· No child shall be required to pass any Board examination till completion of elementary education;

· Every child completing his or her elementary education shall be awarded a certificate.

Chapter-VI-Protection of Right of Children:

· The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights shall examine and review the safeguards for rights provided by or under this Act and recommend measures for their effective implementation;

· Any person having any grievance relating to the right of a child under this Act may make a written complaint to the local authority having jurisdiction;

· The Central Government shall constitute, by notification a National Advisory Council consisting of such number of Members, not exceeding fifteen, as the Central Government may deem necessary, to be appointed from amongst persons having knowledge and practical experience in the field of elementary education and child development;

· The functions of the National Advisory Council shall be to advise the Central Government on implementation of the provisions of the Act in an effective manner;

· The State Government shall constitute, by notification a State Advisory Council consisting of such number of Members, not exceeding fifteen, as the Central Government may deem necessary, to be appointed from amongst persons having knowledge and practical experience in the field of elementary education and child development;

· The functions of the State Advisory Council shall be to advise the State Government on implementation of the provisions of the Act in an effective manner.

Chapter-VII-Miscellaneous:

· The Central Government may issue such guidelines to the appropriate Government or as the case may be, the local authority as it deems fit for the purpose of implementation of the provisions of this Act;

· The appropriate Government may issue guidelines and give such directions as it deems fit, to the local authority or the School Management Committee regarding implementation of the provisions of this Act;

· The local authority may issue guidelines and give such directions, as it deems fit, to the School Management Committee regarding implementation of the provisions of this Act;

· The Appropriate Government may, by notification, make rules, for carrying out the provisions of this Act;

· Every rule or notification made by the State Government under this Act shall be laid, as soon as may be after it is made, before the State Legislatures.

B. RTE Act and Its Implementation in the field of Elementary Education in India:

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) conducted across India a post-facto social audit of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) in November, 2010. It reveals that classrooms give shelter to cows and buffaloes, while students sit outside in the compound. Children carry their own plants to school for mid-day meals and later rush back home on the pretext of washing dishes, but never come back for classes. This situation was found in many elementary schools of rural areas in India. Broadly, poor infrastructure, lack of safe drinking water, dirty toilet, missing teachers, lack of knowledge of RTE and poor maintenance of records were the issues found at the time of the post-facto social audit of RTE by NCPCR. Most of the schools complained that the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry’s circulars on the RTE Act, 2009, had not reached the schools and the teachers were ill-equipped and ill-trained to implement new concepts of teaching under the Act. Moreover, the rules of the RTE Act are yet to be notified in some states which are other hurdles in making things move.

However, there had been a positive side also. In Haryana, the Special Project Officer (RTE) had drawn up an action plan to bring over one lakh children outside the schooling system into the system after the NCPCR social audit brought it to his notice. Mewat district alone had more than 87,000 children who were not attending schools. In Maharashtra, the Chief Minister issued an order to ensure all schools to follow the provisions of the RTE Act. The District Collector of Amravati directed that henceforth students would not be made to clean toilets. In Andhra Pradesh, wherever it was brought to the notice of the authorities that schools had collected fee for admissions and were issuing various certificates then orders had been issued to refund the fee. In Tamil Nadu, a lot of awareness was created after the social audit was conducted. In Bihar, there was a demand from the people about entitlements for their school going children.

Releasing a report prepared on the achievements in the first year of implementation (April 1, 2010 – April 1, 2011) of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, in New Delhi on April 1, 2011, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said 81 lakh children out of school was a matter of great concern. However, he said the States were very cooperative in the implementation of the Act. Majority of the states had notified the rules, 11 State constituted State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR), While 28 States adopted the policy of eight year primary education. There was a policy of no detention (failing) in 27 States and 28 had banned corporal punishment. Several States had banned private tuition, screening procedure and capitation fee. Kapil Sibal said the teachers who did not possess qualification were given five years to equip themselves. He appreciated that a huge number of children were now enrolled in primary schools – 13 crore at the lower primary level and another 5 crore at the upper primary level. Enrollment of girls was 48 percent.

Meanwhile, at a “jan sunwai” (public hearing) held in New Delhi in April 2011, as many as 800 complaints were filed with the NCPCR relating to the negligence of school authorities, leading to corporal punishment, collection of fees/funds, denial of admissions/scholarships and the poor quality of education, classroom transactions, infrastructure and mid-day meal. The five member jury comprised NCPCR chairperson Shanta Sinha, National Advisory Council (NAC) member Farah Naqvi, Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti president Vinod Raina, NCPCR member Yogesh Dube and national coordinator, RTE Division, Kiran Bhatty. Significantly, 206 of 800 complaints filed with the NCPCR were about dirty toilets. Hearing the complaints, the jury directed the administration to submit a report on the status of toilets in all schools at the earliest. The jury also heard a number of complaints relating to children having been asked to sweep and lift construction material. Besides issuing case-specific directions, the Commission also issued a set of general recommendations to the State on developing policies for safety and health in schools. The jury recommended that there be a detailed investigation by the Commission regarding the complaints and that the schools maintain a record of such incidents. The jury said it was overwhelmed by the community’s response and that it was heartening to see about 1,500 people sit through the entire day and come forth to depose before the jury.

The historic Right of Children to free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 had completed the first two years on March 31, 2012, after it was notified by Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India. A key feature of the RTE is that it emphasizes quality as an integral aspect of the child’s right to be educated. Chapter-V of the RTE Act lays down fairly specific terms under which the quality of elementary education is to be ensured. These include a comfortable teacher-student ratio, curriculum reform and improvement in evaluation methods. No doubt, the successes of these measures depend on teachers, and that is where the system is currently facing its worst obstacle. In India, a vast number of elementary school teachers had been appointed over the years without any attention to basic qualification or training. At the top is Madhya Pradesh, which has radically lowered the status of primary school teachers with the help of a two-decade long policy delusion. Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh present similar, though less intractable cases. The States in the North-East including Assam came next where a vast number of primary school teachers had been appointed over the years without any attention to basic qualifications and training. West Bengal constitutes a case of its own kind, symbolizing isolation from national trends and norms. Moreover, instead of improving teachers’ training, some States, namely, Odisha has opted for cosmetic solutions by imposing a dress code requiring teachers to wear. Maharastra and Andhra Pradesh may not face an acute shortage of teachers, but the issues pertaining to the quality of training is far less than required. Many of the remaining States also present a grim picture.

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) entrusted with the responsibility of monitoring the implementation of the Act issued a statement on April 1, 2012, to mark the completion of two years of monitoring of RTE implementation. The NCPCR statement says, “The key challenges that would be addressed in the third year would be ensuring all entitlement of children in accordance with the RTE Act in terms of school standards, infrastructure, teacher recruitment and training. Universal coverage of pre-school children, harmonizing Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 and the National Child Programme (NCP) with RTE Act, total ban on corporal punishment, establishment of grievance redressal mechanism and accountability from the school to the State and Central Government were some other issues that would be given attention in the coming year (April, 2012 – March, 2013)”.

Conclusion:

The passing of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 marks a historic moment for the children of India. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 came into force from April 1, 2010. This is a historic day for the people of India as from this day the right to education will be accorded the same legal status as the right to life as provided by Article 21A of the Indian Constitution. The main features of this RTE Act are that every child of the age of six to fourteen years shall have a right to free and compulsory education in a neighborhood school till completion of elementary education. No child shall be denied admission for want of documents; no child shall be turned away if the admission cycle in the school is over and no child shall be asked to take an admission test. Children with disabilities will also be educated in the mainstream schools. All private schools shall be required to enroll children from weaker sections and disadvantaged communities in their incoming class to the extent of 25% of their enrollment, by simple random selection. No seats in this quota can be left vacant. The Rte shall ensure improvement in quality of education. School teachers will need adequate professional degree within five years or else will lose job.

On March 31, 2012, the historic Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 had completed its first two years, after it was notified by Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India. In India, a vast number of elementary school teachers had been appointed over the years without any attention to basic qualification or training. There is a great risk that a vast number of untrained or nominally trained persons will be allowed to enter primary schools as teachers all over India. The NCPCR received 2,850 complaints from 28 States and Union Territories on issues relating to admission, corporal punishment, detention of children, discrimination, teachers’ attendance, reservation for economically weaker sections in private schools, overcharging of fees and inadequate infrastructure in the last two years. Significantly, the NCPCR is the only authority where parents, children and social activists can lodge their complaints for violation of the provisions of the Act. The NCPCR also must invite all civil society groups, students, teachers, administrators, artists, writers, government personnel, legislators, members of the judiciary and all other stakeholders to join hands and work together to build a movement to ensure that every child of this country is in school and enabled to get at least 8 years of quality education.

References:

1. Analysis by CCS on Model Rules under RTE, http://righttoeducation.in/analysis-ccs-model-rules-under-rte

2. Matrix for Drafting State Rules under the RTE Act, http://righttoeducation.in/matrix-drafting-state-rules-under-rte-act

3. Parth J Shah and Shreya Agarwal, Right to Education Act: A Critique, CFO Connect, May 9, 2010

4. School Voucher for Girls, 2009, http://scholchoice.in/gvp/

5. The Assam Tribune, June 14, 2012, Guwahati-781003

6. The Case for Right to Education of Choice: Key Findings from the Delhi Voucher Project, http://schoolchoice.in/events/20090219_delhivoucher.php

7. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, Ministry of Law and Justice, The Gazette of India, New Delhi, the 27th August, 2009

Received on 11.10.2021 Modified on 18.11.2021

Int. J. Rev. and Res. Social Sci. 2021; 9(4):147-152.