Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal is trying to push through what may be his last reform agenda in the ministry—extension of right of children to free and compulsory education to secondary education—with an eye on 2014 general elections. And, at a whopping cost of Rs 20,000 crore to the exchequer over five years.
Sibal has ensured the proposal is part of the agenda for the 60th meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) to be held on November 1. CABE is the apex decision-making body of the HRD Ministry. If the CABE clears it, the Union HRD Ministry will bring the proposal forward to Parliament for approval.
Sibal also got the draft legislation for prohibiting unfair practices in school education sector. The Prohibition of Unfair Practices Bill, 2010, meant for higher education is still pending in Parliament.
Taking a cue from CMs like Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Nitish Kumar and Narendra Modi, Sibal is offering free bicycles to students of Class IX and class X at the Centre’s expense. It won’t be just the girls who will be riding free bicycles, the boys too will be getting their wheels.
In the name of reforms, Sibal proposes mid-day meals, free text books, note books and stationery for all students till secondary education stage. So far, these are available only to primary education students. The HRD Minister also has proposed scholarships for girls, disadvantaged groups, educationally minority groups and economically weaker sections.
All children who complete Class VIII and are below 17 years of age will be eligible to enter Class IX under the right to secondary education. However, the age limit would be flexible for the disadvantaged groups—SC, ST, minorities and BPL families. The right to secondary education to children above 17 years would be extended through open school education.
Since surveys have revealed that poor infrastructure, bottlenecks during implementation and a high drop-out rate have contributed to the poor performance in secondary education, Sibal wants to make proper infrastructural facilities mandatory.
It is proposed that common parameters like quality, equity, admission, enrollment, evaluation, free entitlement, and RTE coverage at the secondary level of education should be uniform across the country. However, Sibal offered autonomy to the states for further necessary modifications as per their specific requirements.
To provide quality education, the HRD Ministry has proposed that the duration of teacher education programme (BEd) may be extended to two years (one year academic and second year as internship) as against the current one year limit.