Consultation on Right to Education-2010 held
Source: Hueiyen News Service
Imphal, March 26 2011:
Government officials, community leaders, students' leaders, women leaders, NGO workers, educationists, teachers, intellectuals and social workers, who took part in a one-day consultation on right to education held at the conference hall of Imphal Hotel today, have shared their opinions on the effective implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 .
Speaking as chief guest at the opening function of the consultation, organized by the Manipur Alliance for Child Rights (MACR), RK Nimai, commissioner art and culture, observed that even though the provisions of the Act are attractive, it would be hard to translate into work.
He said that due to badly deteriorated education delivery system of the state, many educated youths could not get employment as they could not compete with the educated youths of other states.
Parents and guardians are sending their children to the private schools as they have no more faith with the government schools.
On the other private schools are mushrooming up as the same has been using a good income earning business centre.
As there is political influence in the school education, controversies are erupted even in the prescription of text book for students.
With the SCERT is functioning only for the namesake, Board of Secondary Education Manipur is functioning with very powerful but it could not perform its responsibility upto the satisfactory level, Nimai said.
Director of Education (s), W Rajen, who presided over the function, asserted that even though the SCERT and SSA are the implementing agencies for the RTE in the state, responsibly to be taken by the two bodies are not yet clear.
Some time would be taken in classifying the responsibility, he added.
Taking part in the consultation, MACR convener, K Pradipkumar recalled the enactment of the Act from April 1, 2010 all over the country (except in Jammu and Kashmir) and said that it aims at providing enforceable right to education of children between 6 and 14 year of age.
Manipur government issued its consequent RTE rules called "Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Rules 2010 through state gazette notification on October 22, 2010 and started implementation process.
Considering that, RTE implementation needs a larger participation of parents and guardians, educationists, local authority and civil societies for monitoring, planning and alerting the state, the one-day consultation is being organized, he added.
The technical session of the consultation was conducted by ZEO Zone-II, H Shamu and many resource persons talked on the problems and prospects to be faced while implementing the Act.