Did You Know ?

Even though the RTE Act is in its third year, there are significant gaps experienced in ensuring the full and effective implementation of the RTE Act.

1. Children are being denied admission to a school due to lack of age proof or domicile certificate.
2. Schools lack adequate infrastructure such as separate toilets for boys and girls; clean drinking water; a proper school building.
3. Physical punishment is meted out to children.
4. Schools continue to demand capitation fees or tuition fees for admissions, despite the penalties.
5. Nearly 92 lakh children have either dropped out from schools or have never been to any educational institution. And besides the economic reason, a key factor is access to a school. Children have to commute long distances as the schools are far away.
6. Even though the Act permits mid year school entry, children continue to be denied school admissions anytime of the year.

Right to Education Act’ 2009

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, which is often referred as Right to Education (RTE) Act in common parleys, came into force from 1 April, 2010. The Act provides for free and compulsory education to all children of the age of 6 to 14 years.

• It is the duty of the State to ensure every child between 6-14 years is entitled to free and compulsory educat
• No child can be denied admission to a school due to lack of age proof or domicile certificate.
• A child can be admitted to school anytime of the year.
• Every school needs to have adequate infrastructure such as separate toilets for boys and girls; clean drinking water; a proper school build.
• No physical punishment can be meted out to children.
• Penalties will be charged to school demanding capitation fees or tuition fees for admissions.

• The number of out-of-school children has declined from 25 million in 2003 to 8.1 million in mid-2009.
• The most significant improvements have been in Bihar, Jharkhand, Manipur and Chhattisgarh.
• The percentage of out-of-school children in highly populated states like Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa and Bihar remains a cause of concern.

There has been tremendous progress in improving access with 99% of habitations having a primary school within one kilometre, and 92% with an upper primary school within three kilometres.

• There have been significant improvements in the proportion of children from socially disadvantaged groups enrolled in school.
• For Scheduled Caste (SC) students, 19.7% were enrolled in 2008-2009, with 11% enrolled for Scheduled Tribe (ST) students. This is greater than their share of the population as a whole (16.2% for SCs and 8.2% for STs).
• The proportion of ST children at upper primary level is much lower, which indicates that ST children are more vulnerable to dropping out of the school system.

• 84 out of 100 schools have drinking water facilities overall in India.
• 65 out of 100 schools have common toilets in India;
• 54 out of 100 schools have separate toilets for girls.

• Admission denied due to not having TC & Birth Certificate or local residence proof
• Parents had to pay admission fee & were asked to pay monthly fee, any kind of receipt against paid amount has not been provided to the parents by School as well.
• Children are being denied admission in mid-year or after half yearly school test

• With the no detention scheme, maintenance of standards would be a challenge
• Whether it is prohibiting tuitions or schools taking capitation fee, the Act and the State's draft rules are weak on penalties
• Training of teachers within 3 years of implementation of the RTE Act seems to be a daunting task
• Implementation of remedial teaching to realize age appropriate grade for children would be daunting task
• The main challenge is to implement the 25 per cent reservation for poor students, keeping all children in school until class V while reaching acceptable standard learning levels, monitoring private schools' recognition, establishing School Management Committees that function well, and all done with similar mechanism in all States and Territories.
• Lack of awareness among the people regarding the various provisions of RTE
• Lack of awareness regarding grievance redressal mechanism for RTE violations
• Lack of monitoring of RTE implementation
• Lack of accountability
• Multiple structures, systems and functions
• Lack of clarity on issues such as 25% reservation for Economically Weaker Sections in private schools