-The Times of India
PUNE: The much-anticipated extension of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, to the pre-school and secondary education may still take time to come through.
The act, which at present covers primary and upper primary schools, provides for free and compulsory education to children between the ages of six and 14 and directs government, aided and non-minority unaided schools to reserve 25% of the seats for poor children. In April, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of the act.
In June 2011, the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE), which is the country’s highest advisory body for education and is headed by the HRD minister, had constituted a sub-committee to examine the feasibility of bringing pre-school and secondary education under theRTE Act. The sub-committee had also been tasked with preparing a draft legislation for the same.
Two independent drafting panels of the CABE sub-committee have since prepared the draft frameworks. The panels have highlighted issues that need to be addressed through a wider consultation involving all stakeholders, including the state governments. The draft frameworks and the sub-committee’s feedback are due for review at the CABE’s meeting on November 1.
The drafting panels, headed by education ministers of Madhya Pradesh and Haryana for pre-school and secondary education, respectively, were set up after the CABE sub-committee members felt that issues related to teachers’ recruitment at various levels, curriculum preparation for teacher educators and financial allocations needed to be scrutinised.
The HRD ministry is also keen to link the pre-school initiative to the integrated child development scheme (ICDS) being implemented by the ministry of women and child development. In the context of legislation, the existing regulatory framework for secondary education that involves a large number of private sector institutions also needed to be looked into, according to the members.
At the CABE sub-committee’s meeting on October 10, Madhya Pradesh education minister Archana Chitnis told members that the drafting panel had deliberated on issues related to the entry age for pre-schools, qualifications and capacity-building of teachers for pre-schools, focus on child-centred pedagogy; play-way method and holistic development as critical elements of pre-school education, and the need for effective coordination with ICDS.
Geeta Bhukkal, education minister of Haryana, called for detailed deliberations on the assessment of existing infrastructure, coverage of age of children in the secondary education (15-16 or 15-18) and duration of secondary education (std IX-X or std IX-XII). Similarly, she sought deliberations on appointment of additional teachers as per new pupil-teacher ratio norm, which would be fixed if RTE is extended to secondary education.
Bhukkal called for consultation with state governments on issues like the norms on opening new schools, infrastructure, teacher recruitment etc, with the NCERT on curriculum and with the NCTE for qualification of teacher appointment, teacher eligibility test, teacher training institutes,role and regulatory mechanism of the private sector.
She said, detailed deliberations are required on issues such as abolition of board exams, parents’ views on ‘no detention policy’ and no denial of admission around the year, free admission in private school to disadvantaged category, coverage of children with special needs, formation and functioning of School Management Committees.