Journey of Act

Congratulations to all Indian citizens that from 1st of April 2010 all children of the entire country have got free and compulsory education in neighborhood schools of their town or city.

Now it is the responsibility of the govt. that each n every child will be enrolled and will access the education without any cost bearing by their guardians or parents and ‘state’ will bear all cost and pain in this journey. See how big change can come with this step; what power we have got. Now every child has to be ‘in’ the school and now it has become his/her legal right!! It is Act now!!  And if we find any child roaming here and there and not even enrolled we can challenge it to the court!  We can check and challenge the progress of the school, their quality standards, their bad infrastructure and even their teacher’s track record. But it is unfortunate that education has always not been among the top in the priority list of this country.

See the process, statistics, and willingness of govt. in this regard

  • Year 1950 – our constitution gives a clear indication that ‘state shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the country within the next 10 years’
  • Year 2002 – (after 50 years of that statement) – a constitutional amendment (96th ) was made to make education a fundamental right of the common citizen of the country.
  • Year 2005 – after three years a common bill was prepared and presented in the cabinet of central govt. Had been referred to experts and committees for their kind consideration and possible changes
  • Year 2006 – It was presented again in the cabinet and again it is referred to parliamentary committees for amendments due to lack of consensus on this ‘issue’
  • Year 2009 – Finally it was presented in both Parliament houses and somehow it was passed with lack of further possibilities, necessitates and provisions to add.

What lacking -

  • Includes only age group 6 to 14; what about the below 6 yrs child?.. and what about after 14th? i.e. after giving elementary education till class 8th when the time comes to make a building on strong base govt. will not be there to take him/her further.
  • Problems in infrastructure – more than 10 lakh primary schools have not enough space and resources to accommodate such large children.
  • Are there available primary teachers sufficient to teach? Are they qualified enough? Even thousands are primary teacher posts are vacant till now and schools are running with 1 or 2 teachers??
  • Thousands of NGOs/volunteers/community leaders who are already involved in the education/health/environment sector can’t be a helping hand for the state. No initiation (provisions) has shown by the govt. in the Act.
  • Budget – need more than 40K crores and projected only less than 30K crores.  They know, it is less but they couldn’t (?)

In spite of these challenges the important thing is how common person behaves on this implementation – is he ready to participate in the process of nation-building? Should it be the sole responsibility of the state? We all will benefit from this act then why not we indulge in this process for every child of our surroundings. Law governs Education and law is equal for everyone. And now, it is time for every child to get support to become a good human being, intellectual and responsible citizen.

© Copyright 2020 Prayatna. All rights reserved