HYDERABAD: The Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009, came into effect a decade ago. For the first time ever in the history of India, the State was obligated to provide free and compulsory education to all children from 6-14 years of age. It also had a timeline for its implementation - an ideal student-teacher ratio, adequate infrastructure etc. Indeed, much was hoped from it.
Despite limitations, the Act has progressive elements such as neighbourhood schools, community participation, ban on corporal punishment, no detention, continuous and comprehensive evaluation. It appeared that India was not far from achieving universal elementary education.
On the 10th anniversary of the Act, however, Telangana continues to be one of few non-compliant states, something that educationalists allege has deprived over 16 lakh of the State’s students . Pan-India too, in 19 states where it has been implemented, the results are dismal.A MHRD report (IMRB) states that in 2014, 6.64 crore children in the age group of 5-17 years were not in school.
“The idea behind RTE Act was to ensure no child is out of school. But over 3 lakh students in the State are out of school and engaged in child labour,” said Murli Mohan, State convenor of Right to Education Forum.Mohan added that though enrolment has increased in the State, drop out rates have also increased because schools are not able to provide facilities.
Acute shortage of teachers has led to poor quality of education. Additionally, lack of access to enough number of schools, closure of schools in name of rationalisation, poor budgetary allocation are some of the other effects of the non-implementation of the RTE Act.Activists and academicians have also criticised Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao for overlooking the RTE Act and replacing it with KG to PG. Rao trashed the Act in 2016 in the Telangana Assembly stating that it was not going to be implemented in the State.
RTE Act will hit govt schools
The implementation of RTE will also adversely impact government schools. Former Education Minister Kadiyam Srihari had said that implementation of Act would result in the closure of around 4,000 government schools in the State since such students would migrate to private schools