To,

The Prime Minister,

Government of India.

 

6 million children do not go to school in India and out of those who are enrolled, 41% are likely to never complete their elementary education.

 

Education is the key to national development and ensuring the complete implementation of the RTE Act, 2009 will ensure a better future of the country. This law provided for a timespan of five years to ensure all schools in the country complied with a minimum set of norms and standards. This period comes to an end on 31st March 2015.  However, it is a matter of national concern that in 2013, only 10% of the schools were compliant with all the norms and standards of the RTE Act, 2009; and now, after nearly 5 years, the Act continues to default on all the deadlines set by Parliament. The children who would be most affected by the delay in implementation of the RTE Act are children of the marginalized sections, especially the SC, ST, Muslims, OBC, girls and children with disabilities; migrant children, displaced children, children living in urban poverty and children in conflict affected areas.While India has made great progress economically, it continues to lag far behind the other BRICS countries and even most of its neighbors with respect to ensuring good quality education in an equitable manner to all of its children.

 

India stands at a historical threshold. It was in 2002 that the basis for a constitutional right to education was laid in the form of the 86th Constitutional Amendment. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 was introduced to actualize its vision and we must achieve the complete implementation of this Act at the earliest

 

With barely 150 days left to the Act’s deadlines, the Government should ensure:

 

1. Complete implementation of the RTE Act, 2009. Ensure all schools comply with all the norms of RTE Act.

 

2. Bring all children back into school by 2015 by rolling out nationwide child mapping and tracking systems and special training for all children out of school.

 

3. Take urgent action to ensure that all teacher vacancies are filled by qualified, trained and regular teachers as laid down in the RTE Act, 2009. Renovate and strengthen on urgent basis adequately staffed and fully funded academic support structures for teachers across the country, particularly teacher education institutions.

 

4. Empower parents to exercise control over the schools through SMCs and ensure that SMCs are responsible for bottom up planning.

 

5. Convene an urgent meeting of the National Development Council (NDC) to plan for the Act’s implementation and take up its monitoring in each consecutive NDC meeting until the task of RTE implementation is fulfilled.

 

6. Allocate all the resources needed for the implementation of RTE Act. This calls for substantially enhancing the current budgetary levels and announcing a time- bound roadmap for achieving the target of6% of GDP for education.

 

7. Put in place regulatory framework for private schools including ensuring their compliance with minimum norms.

 

8. Take steps needed to end discrimination and to ensure total inclusion of Children with disability, Dalit, Tribal and Muslim learners in classrooms.

 

9. Put in place policies and resources to ensure instruction in the mother tongue for all children.

 

10.Extend the Right to Education to children under 6 and up to the age of 18 years.

 

11. Strengthen the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and State Commissions for Protection of Child Rights by making them functionally independent, adequately staffed and financed entities and put in place an uninterrupted chain of redressal of complaints from the grassroots to national level.

 

We hope that you will consider the above points and make the RTE Act, 2009 a reality!