Almost two years after the Right to Education (RTE) Act was implemented in the state, several parents have decided to take the initiative of creating awareness about a number of issues troubling the intended beneficiaries.
Backed with unpleasant experiences with obtaining a seat under the RTE quota and the other benefits under it, members of the RTE Task Force met on Saturday to discuss and formulate an action plan. Various parents whose children are studying in city schools under the RTE quota volunteered to take up specific issues such as discrepancies in textbooks and informing parents about benefiting fully from the Act.
M R Srinath, a freelance proofreader and a RTE parent, who stays in Rajajinagar, has taken the responsibility of analysing textbooks for errors. Speaking to Express, he said that his complaints with the Karnataka Textbooks Society were not responded to properly.
“Sitting with my children when they were studying, I could not help but notice glaring errors in spellings and grammar. ‘Rig veda’ was spelt as ‘rg veda’ and ‘might’ was called ‘mite’,” said an upset Srinath.
He added that he had come across errors in the Social Science, Science and Mathematics textbooks of Classes 5 and 6 and the English textbook for Class 1. “Such mistakes will send out wrong information to children, who are at a very impressionable age. There are so many illiterate parents who will not even realise that their children are being taught erroneous things at school. The Education Department must take up these issues,” he rued.
Srinath, whose children are studying under the RTE quota, is compiling a report on the errors in textbooks from Classes 1 to 10 and will soon submit it to the Karnataka Textbooks Society.
“The government is spending Rs 11,848 on each child. Schools must prepare expense reports to show how much of the sanctioned money they are actually spending on these children. Using the RTI, parents must seek this information so that they realise what their children are actually entitled to,” said Kumar, a cab driver from Basaveshwarnagar, who has decided to play his part in spreading awareness among RTE parents.
Nagasimha G Rao, convener of the Task Force, said that if the Education Department does not take up these concerns discussed at the meet, parents would stage a protest at the end of July.
The Task Force, which consists of 131 parents, has also requested the government to hold another meeting to discuss the matter of having a uniform fees structure in all schools. “Also, we will demand training programmes for teachers regarding the guidelines spelt out by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) on corporal punishment,” he said.