The Centre has agreed to release `400 crore to the Andhra Pradesh government to implement the Right to Education Act from this academic year 2010-11.
The decision was taken at a meeting convened by the Union minister of human resource development with the officials of the school education department of various states in New Delhi this week. The principal secretary of primary education, Ms Chandana Khan, had attended the meeting.
The Union HRD ministry has asked the state government to immediately submit a report on the financial and human resource requirement to implement the RTE Act.
The ministry has decided to send a delegation to Hyderabad on October 5 to frame the modalities for implementing the RTE Act in the state.
The department of primary education has directed the district education officials to submit a report to the higher officials on the resources required to implement the RTE by September 18. The department will compile the data and place it before the officials of the Union HRD ministry on October 5 for approval.
Though the Act came into force from April 1 this year, the state government is yet to set up a monitoring mechanism for its implementation.
The state government is yet to adhere to the “model rules” prescribed by the Centre to implement the RTE Act: the most important being filling up of vacant teacher posts and providing infrastructure facilities in schools.
The state government has to recruit about one lakh teachers to implement the RTE Act and comply to the norm of maintaining teacher-student ratio of 1:30 for primary classes and 1:35 for secondary classes.
The government has also failed to set up district-level and state-level monitoring committees to oversee the implementation of RTE Act as prescribed by the Central government.