International Human Rights Day and Right to Education Act

Dr R.K. Brajananda *

A woman speaking in the sharing session in Relation with International Human Rights Day 2011 at Palace Compound :: Pix - HL

The 10th of December every year is celebrated as the Human Rights Day internationally. It was so chosen to honor the United Nations General Assembly's adoption and proclamation, on 10th December 1948, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which is considered to be the first international initiative on protection and promotion of human rights.

The formal establishment of Human Rights Day occurred at the 317th Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly on 4 December 1950, when the General Assembly declared resolution 423(V), inviting all member states and any other interested organizations to celebrate 10th December ever year as the Human Rights Day. The UDHR holds the world record as the most translated document with more than 360 language versions available.

In the light of this important day, the objective of this article is to throw some light on Right to Education Act and the Quality of Education in India. The constitution of India has made education a fundamental right in 2002 by its 86th Amendment. After nine years of the amendment, the Government of India proposed the bill "The Right of Children to free and Compulsory Education, 2009". After both Houses of the Parliament passed it, the Bill finally received the assent of the President on 26th August 2009.

Along with coming into the statute book as "The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 (35 of 2009)", it came into effect from April 1, 2010 onwards. The Act guarantees every child the right to quality elementary education.

Some of the main features of the Right to Education Act are :
All children aged 6-14 shall have the right to free and compulsory elementary education at a neighbourhood school;
no direct (school fees) or indirect cost uniform, text books, mid-day meals, transportation need to be borne by the child or parents to obtain elementary education;
the Government will provide schooling free-of-cost until a child's elementary education is completed;
all schools must comply with certain infrastructure and teacher norms i.e. two trained teachers will be provided for every 60 students at the primary level;
no child shall be held back, expelled or required to pass a Board examination till class VIII;
there must be 25 percent reservation for poor children even in private and minority schools;
there must be one teacher for every 30 students;
school management committees must include parents representatives to monitor schools functioning, etc.

The main objective of this article is to identify and bridge the potential gap in bringing about quality education in elementary school in the country in the back drop of The Right to Education Act 2009. In this context four main parameters are identified i.e. forging public-private partnership; community pressure & community participation; enabling cultural expression in schools; Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) norms revised to meet standard of Right to Education Act.

Forging Public Private Partnership:

Under the Right to Education Act 2009, a school specified in sub-clause (i) of clause (n) of section 2 shall provide free and compulsory elementary education to all children admitted therein; again a school specified in sub-clause (ii) of clause (n) of section 2 shall provide free and compulsory elementary education to such proportion of children admitted therein as its annual recurring aid or grants so received bears to its annual recurring aid or grants so received bears to its annual recurring expenses, subject to minimum of twenty-five percent.

Again, a school specified in sub-clauses (iii) and (iv) of clause (n) of section 2 i.e. ("School" means any recognized school imparting elementary education and includes (i) a school established, owned or controlled by the appropriate Government or a local authority, (ii) an aided school receiving aid or grants to meet whole or part of its expenses from the appropriate Government or the local authority, (iii) a school belonging to specified category, and (iv) an unaided school not receiving any kind of aid or grants to meet its expenses from the appropriate Government or the local authority), shall admit in class I, to the extent of at least twenty-five percent of the strength of that class, children belonging to weaker section and disadvantaged group in the neighbourhood and provide free and compulsory elementary education till its completion.

Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model has been the catch-word for some times in India in the past decade or so. Public-Private Partnership is already being adopted in several infrastructure development sectors, such as the development of airports, railways, roads, and so on, this policy initiative are now being extended to education as well. The "eleventh five year plan" has extensive arrangement to materialize this policy. This plan block has proposed to set up 6,000 new model schools in secondary education, affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education, of this 2,500 schools are to be constructed under the PPP model till 2014.

The proposed to be established school, will accommodate 65 lakh students of whom 25 lakhs will be from the deprived sections. Each school will have about 2,500 students, 1,000 of whom will be from deprived sections and charge a token fee. Fifty percent of the 1,000 students will be from the schedule castes, the scheduled tribes and the other backward classes. They will pay only Rs. 25/month toward school fees.

The rest of the children, who will be from other deprived section non income tax paying families, will be required to pay a fee of Rs. 50/- per month. The remaining to be Rs. 1,000 to Rs. 1,200 per head per month will be reimbursed by the Union Government to the schools. The schools will be free to admit any one to the remaining 1,500 seats and charge any amount of fee. Under this model any private companies with a minimum net worth of Rs. 25 lakhs are eligible to set up school.

A sum of Rs. 50 lakhs is to be deposited to the Government by any entity to establish school under this model and Rs. 25 lakhs in subsequent school establishment. Non profit companies with prior experience in education need to deposit Rs. 25 lakhs for each school. These schools will have the sort of infrastructure available in the best private schools.

Another public-private partnership model that is already in practice is the Government aided-private school system. Under this system setting up of a school by a private non-profit seeking organization, a trust, a society, or a voluntary organization, etc. with its own funds and running the school by the same body for a minimum number of years before it become eligible for Government aid for recurring expenditure.

These schools are indeed subject to Government regulation and are required to follow most of the Government rules and regulation in terms of admission, fees, scholarship, other incentives and subsidies, recruitment of staff, salary structure, etc. In fact, they are no different from Government school, except the management part. These school, were found to be funded almost 95 percent of the recurring and sometimes a part of non-recurring expenditure.

This public-private model which is already in practice is being criticized by many for malpractices on the part of the management committee or board of the schools. So, also it is apprehended that the proposed model in fact provides for no Government or any type of social control on education. On the contrary, it provides for unlimited power to the private sector.

It is alleged that unlike earlier PPP model this present model, openly allows for profit making as the school authorities are free to fix fee levels and the Government has no role with respect to either the fee rates or the expenditure of the schools. In this context, it is also important to look at the constraints in bringing about quality education in India especially in elementary education. India faces a total shortage of 510000 teachers; Government can be drag to court for not providing free education as it is already a fundamental right. There are 120,000 elementary schools across the country with only one teacher and 50 percent dropout rates by class VIII.

Community Pressure and Community Participation:

Quality in elementary education is a comprehensive notion, it should include community pressure and community participation as well people should be aware of their rights and responsibilities. Sections 19 and 25 of "The Right of Children to free and compulsory education Act, 2009' has spelt out certain norm and standard for a school.

Community participation for schooling of children should be given attention especially by encouraging educated youth to teach in the school if there were shortage of teachers as honorary teacher for example in Tenkabylu village, in Shimoga District (Tirthahalli and Shikaripur) of Karnataka, where a high level of community participation is observed in primary education. It is observed that the community had a healthy relationship with the teachers and followed a democratic approach to make decision related to school (Economic and Political weekly, Vol. XXXVIII No. 24, June 12, 2002.)

Community participation as understood in terms of non-monetary aspects includes attempt to improve infrastructure facilities in the school, parent teacher meetings, and community participation in school related activities. Studies done on this district has clearly shown that there is improvement made in provision of physical infrastructure in terms of undertaking repair work to improve condition of the schools when analyse the data for the last five years. In the same way, when there is an active participation of the community in organizing celebrations in the school, in terms of supporting in cash and kind which is of ultimate importance, social constraints such as caste, class difference and gender bias, untouchability and child labour were not apparent as far as schooling of children is concerned.

The roles of the elite especially in rural areas were also important factors that contribute in bringing about quality education in elementary stage especially in rural area. These sections of the people were generally exposed to urban education and work culture and therefore, children and parents of labourers, belonging to all castes, also tried to imitate the elite and their children.

The community which is actively involved in schooling of their children definitely helps in building community pressure for higher quality of education. This pressure has been felt by the teacher in many ways, for example, the close watch on the teacher's maintenance of school timing, ensuring the high level of regularity of students to the school and punctuality by their adhering to the school timings. There is the need for the community to keep a strict vigil on teacher transfer especially when exams are pending, the relieving order of the transferred teacher should be withheld until and unless a new teacher came and took over charge.

Another important area is creation of peer pressure among student for healthy competition especially in Government schools. In rural area this trend is less as compared to private school. This is one of the reasons why model school has been started by the Government.

The role of community is not restricted to associating itself in the formal school committees, but to take active interest in the activities of the school both through formal and informal participation. It is also found that participation of the community in informal ways like close observation, enquiring through children about the activities in the school, etc is as much effective as through formal participation such as contributions to school in cash or kind for achieving higher quality of education.

Enabling Cultural Expression in Schools:

A Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) Committee under the chairmanship of Dr. V.R. Ananthamurthy was established by Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, with a focus on "Integration of Culture Education in the school curriculum". The committee recommended a pragmatic broad base framework taking into consideration the cultural diversities in the country.

The National Curriculum Framework 2005 (NFC 2005), brought out by NCERT also clearly reflected in its perspective the social context of education. Education is not to be separated from the society. Hierarchies of caste, economic status and gender relations, cultural diversity, economic development, etc, all are to be taken into consideration while giving children education.

This is being reflected in the sharp disparities between different social and economic groups, which are seen in school enrolment and completion rates. Thus, girl belonging to SC and ST communities among the rural and urban poor and the disadvantaged sections of religions and others ethnic minorities are educationally most vulnerable.

The child's community and local environment from the primary context in which learning takes place and which NFC (2005) has pointed that unless learners can locate their individual stand points in relation to the concepts represented in text books and relate this knowledge to their own experiences of society, knowledge is reduced to the level of mere information. If we want to examine how learning relates to future visions of community life, it is crucial to encourage reflection on "what it means to know something" and how to use what we have learnt. The learner must be fully involved in the process.

To make cultural expression in school education in the context of the diversities in the country, the country can be divided into different pockets so as to develop a cogent framework along with a set of guidelines for operationalising it for the majority of the children, be they in public or private or aided school, rural or urban or semi-urban areas.

One of the aim of cultural expression in school is to create a space within the school, within a cluster of schools, so that there is a link between the social and cultural environment and the children; so that children are in touch with a variety of cultural and aesthetic expression, including oral traditions, craft and artwork, hand skills and creativity; those available within the immediate local environment and in the society as a whole. Exercise celebration, nurture and promote cultural expression of marginalized groups by bringing them into the folds of schooling will also be helpful in fulfilling the objectives of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009.

Revision of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) norms to meet standard of RTE Act:

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan norms has been and needs to be revised to meet the standard of elementary education, the state SSA societies has a big role to play in bringing about qualitative changes in elementary education in the backdrop of RTE Act 2009.

Among the revision that has been taken place in SSA norms in their Annual work plans and budgets for the year 2010-2011 includes provision of primary schooling facility within neighbourhood as per norms notified by the Government, Infrastructure improvement such as school libraries with books for Rs. 3000 for primary school and for Rs. 10,000 for upper primary school; school grant has been extended to include play material, games, sports equipment, in addition to the existing provision for replacement of non-functional school equipment and for other recurring costs" ; revision of norms for teacher training; enhancement of financial assistance for children with special needs from Rs. 1200/- per child per year to Rs. 3,000, with the condition that at least Rs. 1000/- will be spend in engaging resource person; Besides these areas that needs to be discuss includes sanction post of teachers, construction of class room, toilet apart from teacher recruitment, teacher re-deployment.

To conclude, bringing about quality of education in India in the backdrop of RTE Act 2009 is not an easy task. The huge financial involvement in this Act should not be a constraint in achieving the objectives spelt out in the Act. Apart from a possible repeat of large-scale-dropout of students, there is this widely echoed view that the education offered in most school is of poor and substandard quality.

According to a rough estimate 142 million Indian children are denied access to primary and secondary education due to inadequate schools or social and family condition. This estimate is bigger than the entire population of some countries. Therefore, to bring about quality education in the country, a comprehensive all inclusive empirical study is required.