UNIT-IV

The Right to Education

Objectives of the Unit
This Unit will
 Introduce students to the concept of Right to Education and its development.
 It will enable the students to understand the constitutional perspective regarding the
Right to Education in India.
 Help students to learn about the contribution of the RTE 2009 in the protection of
rights to education.

Introduction
International human rights law guarantees the right to education. The Universal Declaration on
Human Rights, adopted in 1948, proclaims in its article 26: "everyone has the right to
education".
Since then, the right to education has been widely recognised and developed by a number of
international normative instruments elaborated by the United Nations, including the International
Covention on Economic, Social Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Right of the Child and
the UNESCO Convention against Discrimination against Discrimination in Education.
It has been reaffirmed in other treaties covering specific groups (women and girls, persons with
disabilities, migrants, refugees, indigenous people, etc) or contexts (education during armed
conflicts).It has also been incorporated into various regional treaties and enshrined as a right in
the vast majority of national constitutions.
Both individuals and society benefit from the right to education. It is fundamental for human,
social and economic development and a key element to achieving lasting peace and sustainable
development. It is a powerful tool in developing the full potential of everyone and in promoting
individual and collective wellbeing.

The content of the Right to Education

The right to education encompasses both entitlements and freedoms, including:
 Right to free and compulsory primary education
 Right to available and accessible secondary education (including technical and vocational
education and training), made progressively free
 Right to equal access to higher education on the basis of capacity made progressively free
 Right to fundamental education for those who have not received or completed primary
education
 Right to quality education both in public and private schools
 Freedom of parents to choose schools for their children which are in conformity with
their religious and moral convictions
 Freedom of individuals and bodies to establish and direct education institutions in
conformity with minimum standards established by the State Academic freedom of teachers and
students.

The 4 ‘A’ s of Right to Education

The 4 A s were developed by the first UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education,
Katarina Tomaševski, and adopted by the Committee on Economic , social and Cultural Rights
in its General Comment 13 on the right to education(paragraph 6). To be a meaningful right,
education in all its forms and at all levels shall exhibit these interrelated and essential features:
Available – Education is free and there is adequate infrastructure and trained teachers able to
support the delivery of education.
Accessible– The education system is non-discriminatory and accessible to all, and positive steps
are taken to include the most marginalised.
Acceptable– The content of education is relevant, non-discriminatory and culturally appropriate,
and of quality; schools are safe and teachers are professional.
Adaptable– Education evolves with the changing needs of society and challenges inequalities,
such as gender discrimination; education adapts to suit locally specific needs and contexts.

Constitutional Perspective Regarding Right to Education in India

Education is the most potent mechanism for the advancement of human beings. It enlarges,
enriches and improves the individual’s image of the future. The founding fathers of the nation
recognizing the importance and significance of right to education made it a constitutional goal,
and placed the same under the constitution of India. The commitment enshrined in the preamble
and various articles of the constitution.
Article 15(3) enables the state to make special provisions.
Article 21A deals with Right to Education.
Article 24 prohibits employment of children below the age of 14 years in hazardous jobs.
Article 39(f) recommends the protection of childhood again exploitation and moral and
material abandonment. The founding fathers made these safeguards to protect interest of the
weaker sections of the society.
Article 45 directs the state to provide free and compulsory education to all the children under
the age of 14 years.
Further, Article 46 declares that state shall promote with special care the education and
economic interest of the weaker section of the people. It is important to mention here that among
several Articles enshrined in Part IV; Article 45 has been given much importance as education is
the basic necessity of the democracy. In simple words, compulsory education is one of the
elements for stability of democracy, social integration and to eliminate social evils.

Objectives of the Act

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill, 2008 which was approved by
both the Houses of the Parliament and that which finally received the assent of the President on
26th August 2009 was proposed to be enacted with the following objects.
1. To establish the right of every child to be provided full time elementary education of
satisfactory and equitable quality in a formal school which satisfies certain essential norms and
standards.
2. To provide Compulsory Education, i.e., to cast an obligation on the appropriate Government
to provide and ensure admission, attendance and completion of elementary education.
3. To provide Free Education, i.e., no child, other than a child who has been admitted by his/ her
parents to a school which is not supported by the appropriate Government, shall be liable to pay
any kind of fee or charges or expenses which may prevent him or her from pursuing and
completing education.
4. To provide the duties and responsibilities of the appropriate Governments, local authorities,
parents, schools, and teachers in providing free and compulsory education.
5. To provide a system for protection of the right of children and a decentralized grievance
redressal mechanism.

Detailed Description of the RTE Act

 Free and compulsory education
Right of Children to free and compulsory admission, attendance and completion of EE. The Act
defines ‘free’ as removal of any financial barrier by the state that prevents a child from
completing eight years of schooling and ‘compulsion’ as compulsion on the state, rather than
targeting parents. Not enrolled/dropout children be admitted to age appropriate class.
  Special training to enable such children to be at par with others
  Child so admitted entitled to completion of EE even after age 14
The new act softens barriers like birth certificate, transfer certificate, etc. No child shall be
psychologically abused by calling him/her ‘failed’ in any class up to class 8, or expelling him/her
from school and bars corporal punishment, mental harassment.
 Finance
RTE Act does not specify anything regarding the funding for the implementation of the Act. The
amount that was suggested for the successful implementation of the Act was 2, 31, 000 crores.
The issue of insufficient funds was raised by the state governments. The Expenditure Finance
Committee has now come up with a 68:32 funding formula between Centre and States for the
implementation of the said Act. The Centre has now allocated financial assistance to all states so
that the cost of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) could be allocated with the implementation of
the RTE.
The amount allotted is still grossly inadequate to comply with the norms prescribed in the Act
including a student teacher ratio of 30:1 in primary level, 35:1 in upper primary level and 40:1
for schools with more than 200 students (SSA). The Act also prescribe atleast one classroom for
a teacher and separate teachers for Social Science, Languages and Science and Mathematics.
This eventually results in increase in the number of classrooms as well as teachers. But the
anomaly here is that 33% of the Indian schools are single teacher schools and 50% of the schools
are in fact schools only for the namesake.

The mechanism of finance sharing between Centre and States as provided in the Act is as under;
• Central Government shall prepare the estimates of capital and recurring expenditure,
• Central Government shall provide to the State Governments a percentage of the expenditure as
GIA of revenues. This percentage shall be determined from time to time in consultation with the
States,
• Central Government may make a request to the President to make a reference to the Finance
Commission to examine the need for additional resources to be provided to any State
Government for carrying out the provisions of the Act.
Role of Parents/ Guardians
Article 51A of the Constitution of India was supplemented with an additional clause (k) by the
83rd Constitutional Amendment Act which makes it a duty of the parent/guardian to provide
opportunities for education for all children between the age of six and fourteen years. The RTE
Act specifies that the School Management Committees should be constituted of which 75% shall
be parents and 50% of the total member shall be women. Adequate representation is sought from
weak and disadvantaged groups. This step would result in the increase in transparency as well as
accountability.
This indeed was instituted with a good objective, but has in effect put the parents in burden
especially poor parents. The SMCs have to perform a variety of functions including the
monitoring of fund, performance of teachers etc. and require much time and effort.
 Qualified teachers
Teacher raining can be accurately described as the centre of India’s educational depression.
While we intuitively accept that a teacher can indeed ‘make or break’ a child, why then do we
invest so little in creating excellent teachers? Asks Aruna Sankaranarayanan, Director,
PRAYATNA, Centre for Educational Assessment and Intervention. It is time for us to invest
heavily on teacher training and mentoring programmes. Upgradation of teacher education
programmes and Elevation of the status of teachers as professionals is the need of the day.
The present status of teachers reminds us of the famous quote of George Bernard Shaw, “Those
who can does, those who cannot teaches” given by him under the title ‘Maxim for
Revolutionists’ in his renowned play ‘Man and Superman’,1903. When meritorious students of
the day go behind professional courses and campus placements to foreign or international
companies, the teaching profession is neglected. Only a good teacher with due commitment to
the profession can make the teaching-learning process an enjoyable learning experience, for
which training programmes play a remarkable role.
. The problem regarding teachers has two phases.
• Number
• Quality
The Act makes it mandatory for schools to have one trained teacher for a maximum of thirty
students. The pupil – teacher ratio which is normally set as 30:1 and for schools with students
exceeding two hundred, the same shall not exceed 40:1. The Act strictly provides that for the
purpose of maintaining such ratio, no teacher posted in one school shall be made to serve in any
other school or office or deployed for any non-educational purpose. The appointing authorities of
a school owned or established, controlled or substantially financed directly or indirectly by the
appropriate Government or by a local authority shall ensure that the vacancy of teachers shall not
exceed ten per cent.
The Right of children to Free and Compulsory Education Act clearly lays down that the
qualification for appointment of teachers is to be laid down by the academic authority authorized
by Central Government. In order to address the problem of untrained teachers, the Act lays down
academic responsibilities of teachers. It is made the duty of the appropriate Government and the
local authorities to provide training facilities for the teachers. The Act prohibits private tuition by
teachers as well as the deployment of teachers for non-education purpose except for decennial
census, disaster relief and elections.
School Recognition
The RTE Act lays down norms and regulations with regard to infrastructure, PTR, the number of
working days for teachers, the number of school days and the other facilities. The Act stipulates
a time period of three years for private schools for setting right the infrastructural facilities as per
the Schedule under the Act. The provision of the Act penalizing the private institutions for the
lack of infrastructure as prescribed in the Schedule is in a way discriminatory since the
government schools of the same kind do not attract any penalty.
The Act requires a government action for closure of such private schools which lack the
prescribed facilities, infrastructural and otherwise within a period of three years. The viable
option would have been to raise the quality of such schools with adequate mechanisms of state
funding. The problem of insufficiency of schools cannot be meted out by closure of schools. On
the other hand, the bringing up of new schools in addition to the raising of standards of existing
schools would save the situation to a greater extent.
Reservation in private schools
The provision of the Act making it mandatory for private schools, aided as well as unaided, to
provide 25 % reservation of their seats for economically weaker and socially disadvantaged
sections appears to be a welcome step from the surface. Those students will learn in the private
institutions without paying the tuition fees. The private schools will be reimbursed by the
government on the basis of per-child expenditure. The government will pay the tuition fee of the
student or per-child expenditure in government schools whichever is less.
The implementation of this provision has a number of procedural hurdles.
• The selection procedure of students is to be laid down.
• The clause ‘weaker and disadvantaged section’ needs clarity in definition.
• The monitoring process of government is to be laid down.
• The admission criteria are to be as a whole or separate for each neighbourhood schools is to be
addressed.
• It is to be laid down that in case of a private school as well as a government school, which
should be considered as the neigbourhood school
Implementation of the said provision shall be done without overburdening the private
management as the 75% students in the unreserved category. Any kind of financial crisis in the
private management would end up in charging of heavy fees on the children of unreserved
category.
 Curriculum
The curriculum and the evaluation procedure for elementary education shall be laid down by the
academic authority to be specified by the appropriate Government.
Curriculum by prescribed academic authority should:
• Conform to constitutional values.
• Make child free from fear, trauma and anxiety.
• Be child centred, child friendly; provide for learning through activities.
• Medium of instruction – child mother tongue to the extent possible.
• Provide for comprehensive and continuous evaluation.
Act makes it mandatory hat no child shall be required to pass any Board examination till the
completion of elementary education. Examinations are known to produce mental trauma. Fear of
failure, particularly at a tender age, leads to loss of self esteem. The policy of no Board exams
does not mean that there is no strategy to evaluate the student performance. A system of
continuous and comprehensive evaluation is laid down which will enable individual attention to
each and every student by the concerned teachers. The records so made shall be used by the
teachers as a guide in helping each child reach desired levels of educational achievement.

Grievance Redressal Mechanism

The RTE ACT assigns NCPCR/SCPCR additional functions. It includes the following.
• Examine and review safeguards for rights under this Act, recommend measures for effective
implementation.
• Inquire into complaints relating to child’s right to free and compulsory education .
• .NCPCR/SCPCR has powers assigned under Section 14 and 24 of the Commissions for
Protection of Child Rights Act.
Where SCPCR not constituted, appropriate Government may constitute an Authority.
The parties shall also seek redressal of grievances by making a written n complaint to the local
authority having jurisdiction. The local authority shall decide the matter within a period of three
months after giving opportunities to be heard for both the parties. The right to appeal shall also
be used by a person aggrieved by the decision of the local authorities. The appeal will be heard
by the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights or any other authority prescribed by the
Act.
The Act also stipulates formulation of National as well as State Advisory Councils, consisting of
such number of members not exceeding fifteen, to be appointed amongst persons having
knowledge and practical experience in the field of elementary education and child development.
The function of the Advisory Councils shall be to advise the Centre and State respectively for the
effective implementation of the provisions of the act.
 
Compulsory Attendance
The emphasis on compulsory attendance is an indirect way of curbing child labour. The best way
to prevent child labour would be to ensure the presence of children in some other places, say,
educational institutions. There are provisions in RTE Act which makes it obligatory for the
appropriate Government and the local authorities to ensure and monitor admission, attendance
and completion of elementary education by every child.
 
Removal of class or caste consciousness
The RTE Act makes it a duty of the appropriate Government and the local authorities to ensure
that the child belonging to weaker section and child belonging to the disadvantaged group are not
discriminated against and prevented from pursuing education on any grounds. This is an answer
to the dilemma put out by the University Education Commission (1948-49) which had Dr.
Radhakrishnan as its chairperson.
“In a democratic society, opportunity for learning must be open not only to the elite, but to all
those who have to carry the privilege and responsibility of citizenship. Education is a universal
right, not a class privilege. The educational attainments of our people are far below what is
necessary for effective individual living or for the satisfactory maintenance of the society. For
the great majority of our boys and girls, the kind and amount of education they may hope to get
depends not own their own abilities, but on the economic status of their family or the accident of
their birth.”
 
Common School System
The idea of a Common School System is as old as Kothari Commission. Kothari Commission or
Indian Education Commission, 1964-66 emphasized on the expansion of educational institutions
broadly with an accent on equalization of educational opportunities. The committee had
recommended education to people of all straits of society and envisaged a Common School
System of public education. A recent trend of double standard of education is alarming. The
students from government schools are in no way at par with the students from private
educational institutions and international schools. The government schools in India remain as an
instrument of job security for teachers and peons rather than an accessory to quality education.
The campaigning of government teachers at the time of admission as well as inspection
irrespective of the lack of infrastructure and other amenities clearly depicts the existing scenario.
Acharya Ramamurti Committee which was instituted to review the National Policy of Education
has clearly laid down the need to end the disparities between schools by upgrading the quality of
ordinary schools and providing amenities for minimum levels of learning towards attaining the
goal of Common School System. The suggested determined action of both Centre and States in
this regard.
The Common School System was enshrined and passed by m the Parliament in every National
Policy on Education since Independence viz. 1968, 1986, 1992.
Conclusions
The Right to Education (RTE) Act would play an important role in achieving universal
elementary education in India, but it is amply clear that year one of the implementation of the
Act has not covered much ground.
In order to meet the goals set by us, India must prioritize and invest in making the Act a reality
through dialogue and consultation with key stakeholders within and outside the government. Else
the Act will join the ranks of yet another legislation which never covered the distance between
conceptualization and implementation.

Model Questions
1. Explain the Silent Features of Right to Education.
2. Explain in brief about the 4 As of Right to Education.
3. What can we do for the realization of Right to Education?
4. Write in brief on “Right to Education Act 2009.
5. As a citizen of India give your suggestion to improve the education system and
recommendations to improve the RTE Act.
Particle Work
 Learn this Chapter properly and select five school students from your village/ Town
and give awareness on “Right to Awareness”