What’s good and bad in new edu Act

Anahita Mukherji I TNN

Mumbai: Director of Avehi Abacus Simantini Dhuru, educationsit and trade unionist Arvind Vaidya, film-maker Anand Patwardhan and actor Ratna Pathak Shah came together at a press meet on Friday, slamming the new Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009. “Education is a means to empowerment and social change, not a formality to be dealt with by such an Act,’’ says Dhuru.

We bring you both sides of the coin, with the criticism to the Bill as well as the response from Vinod Raina, an architect of the Bill, who is the founder of Eklavya in MP, which ran the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme.

Criticism: Not enough discussion was held before passing the Bill. It was passed with a low attendance in Lok Sabha.

Reply: The Right to Education Bill has been on the government website since 2005. Lots of debate has been going on since then, both within the government and outside. After the Bill was resurrected in 2008, the government should have started more public talks. I was the one to take the risk of making the Bill public. As for the low attendance in Lok Sabha, there is no rule on the minimum number of people who should be present during the passing of a Bill.

Criticism: The Act notifies the 86th Constitutional amendment, which makes education a fundamental right for children of 6-14 age group, but leaves out the 0-6 and 14-18 years.

Reply: The amendment will only be operative once a law is passed. So in the absence of an Act for the right to education, it would not have been made a fundamental right for anyone. Is that preferable? Those who want the Constitution to include the fundamental right to education of those between 0-6 years and 14-18 years, should push for a re-amendment of the Constitution.

Criticism: The Bill prescribes much lower standards of education than that of the National Education Policy (NEP) of 1986 (modified in 1992). While NEP prescribes a pupil:teacher ratio of 30:1 and at least three teachers at a school, the new Act reduces the ratio to 40:1 and number of teachers to two.

According to the budget for the Bill, the average teacher salary will be Rs 6,000 a month instead of the new Sixth Pay Commission scale. The Bill must prescribe the same norms as those of the government’s Kendriya Vidyalayas.

Reply: It would have been good if the Bill had prescribed better norms, but these are political decisions. The government is reluctant to adequately fund eductaion. The Bill should be looked at as an enabling document and help gain momentum on improving education. Those who want better norms should lobby with political parties. But does it make sense to say that, if we do not have the ideal scenario, we should scrap the Act altogether?