Prez signs education bill into law

States will have three years for implementation

Aditi Tandon, Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 2
The 62-year-old Indian striving of imparting free and compulsory to children acquired body today, with the President granting assent to the Right to Education Bill, passed by Parliament on August 4.

Following the Presidential assent (granted on August 26), the government today issued a gazette notification of the law, which seeks to provide free and compulsory education to all children aged from 6 to 14 years.

The state governments will have three years from today, the date of notification of the law, to implement it. During this period, they will have to put in place neighbourhood schools, minimum education infrastructure with notified pupil-teacher ratio and school management societies to ensure proper implementation of the law.

Cost, by far, remains the gravest challenge in the implementation of the law, which would require Rs 2 lakh crore over the next five years for its enforcement. The HRD Ministry has already admitted to an estimated shortfall of Rs 60,000 crore over the said period, with minister Kapil Sibal saying additional allocations would have to be made.

All states, meanwhile, have put their foot down on the issue of finances, saying they will require maximum possible funding from the Centre to implement the law. At a meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education, held in the capital on Monday, all state education ministers drove home this point, with hill states like Himachal seeking 90 per cent central share in the funding.

There are some apprehensions over the definition of the term “free education”. The matter was raised vociferously by Archana Chitnis, Education Minister of Madhya Pradesh, who wanted the HRD minister to clarify the meaning of term “free”. “Free education would have to be defined by states,” Sibal said, adding that it could mean free books, uniform, school bus travel or anything.

The states, however, feel leaving the definition of “free education” open could lead to confusion. The government feels the model rules under the Act, expected to be formulated soon, would clarify most of the points. Also on the cards is a new Centre-state finance sharing formula, for which National University for Education Planning and Research is developing fresh cost estimates after factoring in the inflationary trend.

“Based on those estimates, we will decide on the new finance-sharing formula. The Finance Commission will also have to be approached to seek additional funds for states,” Sibal said.