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.