Right to education for Everyone Aahwahan Foundation

Proper and good education is very important for all of us. It facilitates quality learning all through the life among people of any age group, cast, creed, religion and region. It is the process of achieving knowledge, values, skills, beliefs, and moral habits. People need to get high level awareness about the importance of knowledge more than before. Education is very necessary for each and every one in order to improve knowledge, way of living as well as social and economic status throughout the life. An educated person having good education becomes the good citizen in the society. India as we know is a developing country has a population over 1.3 billion. Even though the country is growing and developing we can still see a section of the population who are illiterate and don’t not have sufficient resources to send their children to school and provide them with the basic education. This has become a reason for child labour because the child earns an additional income for the family. The government has seen and analyzed this over the years and introduced the Right to Education Act (RTE).

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act or Right to Education Act (RTE), is an Act of the Parliament of India enacted on 4 August 2009, which describes the modalities of the importance of free and compulsory education for children between 6 and 14 in India under Article 21a of the Indian Constitution. India became one of 135 countries to make education a fundamental right of every child when the Act came into force on 1 April 2010. It requires all private schools to reserve 25% of seats to children. The Act also prohibits all unrecognized schools from practice, and makes provisions for no donation or capitation fees and no interview of the child or parent for admission NGO for education. The Act also provides that no child shall be held back, expelled, or required to pass a board examination until the completion of elementary education. There is also a provision for special training of school drop-outs to bring them up to par with students of the same age. The Right to Education of persons with disabilities until 18 years of age is laid down under a separate legislation - the Persons with Disabilities Act. A number of other provisions regarding improvement of school infrastructure, teacher-student ratio and faculty are made in the Act. The Right to Education Act lays down norms and standards relating to Pupil-Teacher-Ratios (number of children per teacher), classrooms, separate toilets for girls and boys, drinking water facility, number of school-working days, working hours of teachers, etc. Each and every elementary school (Primary school + Middle School) in India has to comply with these set of norms to maintain a minimum standard set by the Right to Education Act. It also mandates appointing appropriately trained teachers i.e. teachers with the requisite entry and academic qualifications. School Management Committees (SMCs) play a crucial role in strengthening participatory democracy and governance in elementary education. All schools covered under the Right to Education Act 2009 are obligated to constitute a School Management Committee comprising of a head teacher, local elected representative, parents, community members etc. The committees have been empowered to monitor the functioning of schools and to prepare school development plan. The Right to Education Act is justiciable and is backed by a Grievance Redressal (GR) mechanism that allows people to take action against non-compliance of provisions of the Right to Education Act 2009. The Right to Education Act 2009 provides for development of curriculum, which would ensure the all-round development of every child. Build a child’s knowledge, human potential and talent.

In 2018, it was analysed that the nine-year progress of the Right to Education Act since its enactment in 2009. The observations highlighted significant lack of allocation of resources to education in general and elementary schools. This was far from satisfactory and needed immediate amends in order to improve overall learning outcomes of children. The Right to Education Act 2009 prohibits all kinds of physical punishment and mental harassment, discrimination based on gender, caste, class and religion, screening procedures for admission of children capitation fee, private tuition centres, and functioning of unrecognised schools. Educational inequalities have held a strong ground in India for many years. While the Right to Education Act offers the first step towards an inclusive educational system in India, effective implementation of the same still remains to be a challenge. The RTE also provides facilities in schools like Mid-day meals to children in schools. These give students the provision of one sure meal and this benefits children from economically backward families who struggle for even one meal.

Educational challenges have been prevalent at both the Centre and states for many years in India. The Right to Education Act 2009 maps out roles and responsibilities for the Centre, state and all local bodies to rectify gaps in their education system in order to enhance the quality of education in the country. The states have been clamoring that they lack financial capacity to deliver education of appropriate standard in all the schools needed for universal education. Thus, it was clear that the central government (which collects most of the revenue) would be required to subsidise the states. The Right to Education Act mandates that an out of school child should be admitted to an age appropriate class and provided with special training to enable the child to come up to age appropriate learning level. Education NGO like Aahwahan Foundation continuously working in Bangalore to uplift the education system in society. Aahwahan Foundation is an NGO in Bangalore for education.

The RTE Act provides compulsory education, which reduces child labor and provides the basic education to every child in the country. The Act has provided benefits to many children from the backward class to learn and get the knowledge that the other students of their age get. The Act has also given a boost and has encouraged many NGO’s and corporate firms to help in providing education by helping out in surveys, teaching the students, helping out with the infrastructure of the schools etc. Right to Education Act is making slow progress in mainstreaming equity, in the absence of a strong political commitment in several States. The proposal to extend its scope to younger children through early childhood education is, however, wholly positive.