Education – now a right!

On Tuesday, August 4, 2009, the Indian Parliament passed the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Bill. This bill seeks to guarantee universal, free and compulsory education for children aged between six and 14.

Academicians and political scientists have hailed the achievement as “landmark” as politicians cutting across party lines voted for the “The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill” in the lower house of Parliament without any protest to what is considered one of the most important legislation in the last 62 years since Independence.

The bill also includes contentious provisions like 25 percent reservation in private schools for disadvantaged children from the weaker section of the neighborhood at the entry level.

Other key provisions in the bill are no donation or capitation or interviewing the child or parents as part of a screening procedure.

Moreover, the law provides for building neighborhood schools in three years whose definition and location will be decided by respective states.

For India, which is facing significant challenges in eliminating child labour and reaching the goal of universal access to quality public education, this bill is being termed as an “enormous step forward” , a “landmark”, the “harbinger of a new era” and “historic”.
“Nobody can say no to admission to children. We are sitting on a great opportunity. If we lose it, I don’t know what will happen to our country,” said Kapil Sibal, the human resources and development minister.

“[Education] will be a fundamental right of the child. There is no way that we will not have the finances. We have to do it, we have wasted a lot of time,” he told parliament.

Some numbers:

• India spends a little over 3% of its GDP on education
• More than 35 per cent of Indians are illiterate, and more than 50 per cent of its female population cannot read.
• Official figures record that 50 per cent of Indian children do not go to school, and that more than 50 per cent of those who do drop out before reaching class five at the age of 11 or 12.

Soliloquy in Circles – Ogden Nash

Being a father
Is quite a bother.

You are as free as air
With time to spare,

You’re a fiscal rocket
With change in your pocket,

And then one morn
A child is born.

Your life has been runcible,
Irresponsible,

Like an arrow or javelin
You’ve been constantly travelin’.

But mostly, I daresay,
Without a chaise percée,

To which by comparison
Nothing’s embarison.

But all children matures,
Maybe even yours.

You improve them mentally
And straighten them dentally,

They grow tall as a lancer
And ask questions you can’t answer,

And supply you with data
About how everybody else wears lipstick sooner and stays up later,

And if they are popular,
The phone they monopular.

They scorn the dominion
Of their parent’s opinion,

They’re no longer corralable
Once they find that you’re fallible

But after you’ve raised them and educated them and gowned them,
They just take their little fingers and wrap you around them.

Being a father Is quite a bother,
But I like it, rather.

Ask Daddy, He Won’t Know – Ogden Nash

Now that they’ve abolished chrome work,
I’d like to call their attention to homework.
Here it is only three decades since my scholarship was famous,
And I’m an ignoramus.
I cannot think which goes sideways and which goes up and down,
A parallel or meridian,
Nor do I know the name of him who first translated the bible into Indian,
I see him only as an enterprising colonial Gideon.
I have difficulty with dates,
To say nothing of the Southern Central States.
Naturally the correct answers are just back of the tip of my toungue,
But try to explain that to your young.
I am overwhelmed by their erudite banter,
I am in no condition to differentiate between Tamerlane and Tam o’ Shanter.
I reel, I sway, I am utterly exhausted;
Should you ask me when Chicago was founded,
I could only reply I didn’t even know it was losted.

Welcome!

Hey there, folks! Welcome to Education Primer. This is just the beginning of what is dreamed to be a comprehensive repository of information about education with a specific focus on India. We aim to provide the parents of school-aged children, and anyone else who wishes to stop by, with free access to information and resources that will help them answer questions they have about what their children are learning, should be learning, and about how to make learning fun.

With guidance and contribution from teachers, parents and children we think that this site can grow to be a mine of useful stuff!

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