Ten-year balance

Compulsory education defeats its own purpose if isn’t sufficiently compulsory and long enough. India has been a late entrant into the community of nations that offer their children free and compulsory education up to a basic level, for a certain minimum number of years. The Right of All Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, passed in 2009, entitled every child between 6 and 14 years of age to a free education. However, India still stood out by extending this right for only eight years, up to Class 8. In contrast, nations like the US, Djibouti or the Palestinian territories have extended the years of compulsory education. Russia, for instance, changed its law in 2007, making 11 years of schooling compulsory.

It has been felt in nations offering free and compulsory education that at least a school clearing certificate is necessary. If parents are bound by law to send their wards to school for primary and secondary education, they might as well see them educated till the end of secondary or high school. That’s why the Union Human Resource Development Ministry’s proposal to extend free and compulsory education to Class 10 is welcome, even as the idea might look no more than common sense. What’s the point in ensuring everybody goes to school till age 14, if many of them still finish without the school leaving certificate that also doubles as the most basic, minimum public degree?

However, while the justification of extending compulsory education to Class 10 could not be stronger, there’s a long way to go. RTE is still nascent, its modus operandi and resource pools still being established. The extension will need fresh blueprints and further consultations between the Centre and the states. To begin with, there’s the matter of infrastructure, teachers and money. The proposal may also need an amendment to the RTE Act or a new one altogether. But even as the HRD ministry admits the hurdles, it has its finger on the problem: what happens to children after Class 8? Between the needs of a rapidly growing economy and the social necessity of education, Class 8 was too little, and came too soon.