A Project Report On

RIGHT TO EDUCATION

Submitted By: Name Kumar Ankit Semester 1st Roll Number BALLB/2012/57

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First of all,I would like to thank our very own Nirmala Madam for allowing me to choose a topic on my area of interest. This helped me in choosing a topic on my own and working on such a topic chosen by myself was worth it. This has helped me in gaining long insight into this topic which will help me further in my life. I would also like to thank my parents for believing in me,supporting me in each and every aspect I sought it. I would also like to thank my friends for being on my side throughout the whole journey of this project and giving me valuable ideas. Last but never the least,without whom my work is incomplete,The Almighty who has been a constant support till the end and throughout my journey of this project saga

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION DEFINING THE RIGHT TO EDUCATION HISTORY OF RTE IN INDIA Assessment of fulfilment THE 4 A SCHEME SUGGESTION FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF RTE ACT PROBLEMS WITH RIGHT TIO EDUCATION ACT CONCLUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

The Right to Education Act (RTE), enacted in 2009, has ushered in hope for school education in the country. It is the culmination of efforts made by educationists, members of civil society and judiciary for the last many years. Free and compulsory education for all children had been debated even in pre-Independence years. It made its way into the Constitution as a Directive Principle of State Policy under the former Article 45, whereby states were required to ensure provision of free and compulsory education (FCE) to all children till the age of 14 years within a period of 10 years of the formulation of the Constitution. There is enough evidence to suggest that this goal has not been achieved even several decades after India became independent. With the RTE coming into force, there is an expectation that this will finally be translated into provision of quality school education for all children. It is the primary responsibility of the Government to ensure implementation of the Act. Being part of the concurrent list, the Central and state governments are both responsible for ensuring effective implementation of the Act. There has been significant improvement in terms of the number of primary schools, largely due to additional resources made available through the SarvShikshaAbhiyaan to bridge existing gaps. The scheme is now being extended to the secondary school level as well. In addition to the Governments initiative, the private sector has also played a role in improving the state of education in the country and continues to do so. This study is an attempt to explore the role the private sector can play in implementation of the RTE. There are varied opinions on some sections of the Act from different perspectives. The study includes some views and counters those on some aspects of the Act. For instance, inclusion of a schedule to set up norms and standards has by and large been welcomed, although there is a strong opinion that it does not address quality issues adequately. On the contrary, some groups feel that it is not friendly toward small organizations that are making an attempt to reach out to disadvantaged groups, but are not adequately resourced to meet the norms and standards laid down in the Act. We hope this will make our readers understand some of the different perspectives. The role of the private sector was recognized even in the 1960s when the KothariCommission was assigned the task of preparing a road map for school education in the country. Over the years, there has been

uneasiness in accepting the role of the private sector. The genesis of this perhaps lies in the ever increasing inequality in the education system, which has shaped the two faces of the country India and Bharat one for the elite and the other for the have-nots. This perception is also impacted by civil societys resistance to globalization. According to the law of the land, education cannot be a means to making profit. This raises the question, then how will programs be sustained. There is a demand for allowing reasonable returnson the investment the private sector makes toward education so that its efforts are sustained. On the flip side, if these reasonable returns are allowed, where will it stop? Will there be enough safeguards to ensure that children from economically disadvantaged sections are not denied education because they cannot afford to take admission in schools? Is 25% reservation in private schools the only answer to address issues related to social inequality? We believe that while discussing the role of the private sector, it is important to define what the sector actually is. We have defined the private sector as nonstateplayers, including NGOs, INGOs, civil society groups, corporate foundations and resource agencies. We believe it is possible for like- minded stakeholders to come together and supplement each others efforts. Each stakeholder brings a different set of skills, which can collectively help in effective implementation of the RTE. If child rights are central to all planning efforts, there is a lot that different stakeholders can do collectively to support the Government in achieving its national agenda. It is also our belief that universalization of quality education cannot be achieved without strengthening the public education system. Private and public schools can co-exist, but can greater efforts be made to improve the public education system? We hope this study provides some ideas on how this can be achieved. We owe it to the next generation to make it possible for them to reap the benefits of the demographic advantage we have today.

Defining the right to education

The right to education has been universally recognised since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 (though referred to by the ILO as early as the 1920s) and has since been enshrined in various international conventions, national constitutions and development plans. However, while the vast majority of countries have signed up to, and ratified, international conventions (such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child) far fewer have integrated these rights into their national constitutions or provided the legislative and administrative frameworks to ensure that these rights are realised in practice. In some cases the right exists along with the assumption that the user should pay for this right, undermining the very concept of a right. In others, the right exists in theory but there is no capacity to implement this right in practice. Inevitably, a lack of government support for the right to education hits the poorest hardest. Today, the right to education is still denied to millions around the world. As well as being a right in itself, the right to education is also an enabling right. Education creates the voice through which rights can be claimed and protected, and without education people lack the capacity to achieve valuable functionings as part of the living. If people have access to education they can develop the skills, capacity and confidence to secure other rights. Education gives people the ability to access information detailing the range of rights that they hold, and governments obligations. It supports people to develop the communication skills to demand these rights, the confidence to speak in a variety of forums, and the ability to negotiate with a wide range of government officials and power holders.

History of RTE in India

15 December 2008, seventy one years since Mahatma Gandhi gave the call for universaleducation in 1937; sixty one years since independence; fifty eight years since theConstitution, instead of making education a fundamental right made it part of the Directive Principles; fifteen years since the Supreme Court in 1993 ruled on the right to education; six years after the 86th constitutional amendment was passed by the Parliament in 2002 by inserting Article 21A making education a fundamental right for children in the restricted age group of 6 to 14 years; and four years after the draft bill was prepared by the CABE

committee, the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Bill was introduced in the RajyaSabha on 15 December 2008. Though the delay on part of the state is deplorable, the introduction is undeniably momentous .

The Supreme Court, in 1993 in the Unnikrishnan case, ruled that the right to education would be restricted by the economic capacity of the state only beyond age 14, the government ignored it. When the current draft was being prepared by the CABE in 2005, NUEPA made cost calculations in different scenarios, using the KendriyaVidyalaya salary scales and state government scales for teachers and all the provisions of the mandatory schedule. The amounts in each case fell well within the six per cent of the GDP norm promised by the Common Minimum Programme of the present UPA government . Yet, despite a much better economic situation than during Gandhijis time in 1937, the response of the government was no different! The high level group set up by the prime minister to examine the economic and legal implications of the bill recommended that the states bring in their respective legislations for reasons not disclosed. Essentially it was felt that it was much too expensive for the Centre to fund the scheme as per the NUEPA calculations, and further that the Centre could be burdened with a plethora of court cases; so let the states with financial assistance from the centre assume both these responsibilities. The phrase used was that states were flush with funds, and in any case they are prone to misuse central funding for freebies like cheap rice and colour TVs for buying votes. Once the states rejected the recommendations and many of the critics, in August 2007, questioned the prime minister on the quantum of funds required (on the basis of reduced projections of child population figures by the Registrar of Census in its 2006 corrections to the Census 2001figures), and perhaps because of the political value of such a legislation on the threshold of parliamentary elections, the central legislation was resurrected.

Finally in last two months RTE got the momentum after KabilSibbal coming aboard as the Human Resource Cabinet minister in the new Manmohan Singh Government and it was quickly tabled and passed first in RajyaSabha and then in Lok Sabha5 in August, 2009. So as of today Indians have one more fundamental right i.e Right to Education.

Assessment of fulfilment
The fulfilment of the right to education can be assessed using the 4 As framework, which asserts that for education to be a meaningful right it must be available, accessible, acceptable and adaptable. The 4 As framework was developed by the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, Katarina Tomasevski, but is not necessarily the standard used in every international human rights instrument and hence not a generic guide to how the right to education is treated under national law. The 4 As framework proposes that governments, as the prime duty-bearer, has to respect, protect and fulfil the right to education by making education available, accessible, acceptable and adaptable. The framework also places duties on other stakeholders in the education process: the child, which as the privileged subject of the right to education has the duty to comply with compulsory education requirements, the parents as the first educators, and professional educators, namely teachers. The 4 As have been further elaborated as follows:

The 4-A scheme

The 4-A relate to availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability. Each one of thesecharacteristics is extracted from the right to education and refers to obligations which should be undertaken by the government in order to fulfill its commitments. It translates the juridical notions into comprehensive fragments of the substance of the right to education. Note, however, that all the criteria are interrelated for there is no divisibility of the right and only a holistic view can generate the concept of the right to education. Availability is the first component of the right to education in Tomasevski's (1999) framework. It relates to the possibility of education being obtained by all without any discrimination. It refers to existence of educational institutions within reasonable distance for pupils' attendance it refers to security within the educational system, as well as to making entry into the educational system available to all regardless of age or social condition. As far as infrastructure for schooling is concerned, it requires active employment of resources from the nation-states that can be a constraint to the realization of rights but, as Tomasevskihighlights, others actors, like private investors, can assist on the realization of this aspect of the right to education. Another topic related to

availability is the insurance of free and compulsory education to all. The freedom, in economic terms, includes direct costs but also indirect and opportunity costs and other "invisible costs", as Ribeiro defines it. It has been evident that in many countries it is those indirect costs which disable people to effectively enjoy education. These indirect costs make education unavailable to many. The assurance of free education, however, tends to create a link between poverty and lack of education. Although in many cases, such as in the northeast of Brazil, better education can be translated into wealth, the problems with realizing the right to education are not linked to poverty. Tomasevski argues that the matters lie on policy rather than poverty. In terms of ideological freedom, the availability of the right to education aims to assure that no indoctrination occurs in the educational system and that tolerability of views is practice. No discrimination for the entry into the schooling system due to cultural characteristics. However, even if all those aspects of the right to education are assured in practice, the right to education would not be complete. It requires other components to make it holistic to all. Therefore, white availability of education refers to the existence of the schooling system, accessibility refers to the possibility of entering it and remaining in it. Accessibility means governments must strive for the practical elimination of gender and racial discrimination and ensure the equal enjoyment of all human rights, and must not besatisfied with merely formally prohibiting discrimination. In addition, accessibility relates tothe primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education in different ways; governments are only obliged to provide access to free and compulsory education for all children in the compulsory age range. The right to education should be realized progressively, ensuring allencompassing, free and compulsory education is available as soon as possible, and facilitating access to post-compulsory education as circumstances permit. Accessibility also relates to gender and racial discrimination, complementing the cultural and ethnic discrimination variable described in availability. Measures for preventing such discrimination should be in place to insure that all have access to the educational system. Note, also that "discrimination is a moving target: in addition to old forms of prejudice needing greater scrutiny, such as non-citizens being denied or offered low-grade education, new issues continue to arises. The degree to which accessibility of education should be made available, however, changes as the schooling cycle progresses. Special importance is given to primary education in all of the international legislation concerning the right to education. All treaties establish that primary education shall be compulsory and available free to all. Ribeiro considers that such a compulsoriness and freeness compose the minimum standards of the obligation

towards the right to education which should be observed "immediately, with no delay". As far as secondary education is concerned, the progressive realization of the substance of the right is what the international treaties require. Availability and accessibility are the key words for this level of education, which should take the form of formal, technical and vocational education, for, as Ribeiro continues to say "there is no compulsory requirement nor there is a guarantee that it will be made available and free to all". This is a hindrance in the international system for education but it reflects a compromise which would suit states capacity in the supply of education. Higher education is, yet, less assured than secondary for it should be made accessible on the basis of state capacity and with progressive introduction of free education. As seen, the right to education varies according to the level of education being examined however availability is not automatically translated into the realization of the right to education. Therefore, we follow on the analysis of the next criteria for understanding and assessing the right to education. Acceptability requires minimum guarantees regarding the quality of education, for example in terms of health and safety or professional requirements for teachers, but it is much wider in scope than this. These guarantees have to be set, monitored and enforced by the governmentthroughout the education system, whether the institutions are public or private. Acceptabilityhas been considerably broadened through the development of international human rights law: indigenous and minority rights have prioritized the language of instruction, while the prohibition of corporal punishment has transformed methods of instruction and school discipline. The emerging perception of children as subjects with the right to education and with rights in education has further extended the boundaries of acceptability to include the contents of educational curricula and textbooks, which are increasingly considered from the perspective of human rights. Acceptability is one of the very important themes that guide discussions regarding the right to education for the people that might have education available and accessible but with poor quality which does not lead to the desired outcomes. It involves curricula setting and respect for parents' views on the education of their children, the language of education and the culture of education, for example. As Tomasevski says, there are very few guidelines given by international treaties and national legislations on this matter. In theory, however, international organizations such as UNESCO should be available to assist states in the formulation of technical expertise to develop a coherent

curriculum which would enable students to learn skills to match the goals of education. It would also be part of the same groups of institutions to assist countries on the formulation of indicators to measure the quality of the educational system. Another aspect of acceptable education lies in the bridge between the educational system and the labour market. "Achieving an acceptable level of quality education also demands that attention be paid to the opportunities school-leavers can expect to enjoy when finishing education and entering the job market. One important aspect of this involves close participation between education and the labour sectors, and this is another example of how education must develop a balanced, mutual relationship with all other areas of society to maximize its effectiveness" . Making education acceptable also means attending to other actors, such as teachers and parents for instance, who become plaintiffs of better educational policies as well as demand for collective rights. The International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions have been instrumental in assuring this aspect of the right to education as they handle issues such as the right of teacher to organize for better working conditions, training and salaries. Concerns regarding discrimination also figure within ILO rulings.

Adaptability requires that schools respond to the needs of each individual child, in keepingwith the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This reverses the traditional approach in which schools expected the children to adapt to whatever form of education the school provided. As human rights do not exist in isolation, adaptability involves safeguarding all human rights within education as well as enhancing human rights through education. This necessitates cross-sectoral analysis of the impact of education on the wholerange of human rights, to monitor, for example, graduate employment by ensuring integrated planning between the relevant sectors . However, none of the above aspects of the right to education would be complete without the adaptability of education to the best interest of each student. The ideal that education only regards children permeates the literature regarding this aspect of the right to education but adaptability should concern every student, regardless of age, sex, ethnic origin or whichever other circumstance. The characteristic of adaptability directly deals with methods of teaching and with making education responsive to the immediate reality facing children in their own community" . Participation becomes a valuable resource in this context as it enables the children to voice their experiences and demand for responsiveness of the schooling institutions towards their individual education process.

Williams (2005) narrates the importance of the participation of children in the shaping of their scholar needs and of other rights related to their sphere of activity; she highlights how the opening of innovative ways for participation enhanced their right to live in equity, dignity and in freedom. Adaptability means to do that, to adjust education to peoples changing realities.

Suggestions for implementation of the RTE Act

Suggestions given by respondents maybe categorized under four broad areas:

Awareness
Awareness among communities about the Act is one of the key aspects for it successful implementation. At present, awareness among people about the Act is low. Unless people understand its contours, there will be limited initiative and ownership on their part. Civil society can play a much larger role in creating this awareness.
.

Capacity development
Capacity development is required at various levels to operationalize the Act. At the community level, SMCs and Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRIs) need to be trained about their roles and responsibilities; strengthening of systems and human resource development is also needed to make efficient use of available resources, and most importantly, teachers should be trained to impart childcentered education.

Management
Management functions should be reviewed and bottlenecks in implementation of the Act identified. Planning and monitoring of programs is as important as improving the quality of education imparted. Both require different set of skills. Four tiers in the management structure need to be strengthened and empowered to make implementation of the Act more effective. i. The Centre should also address state-specific concerns and provide support, if required. If some states are dragging their feet in implementing the Act, the Centre can demand its implementation by linking it with the SSA and other development grants.

ii. The State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR), which is the

monitoring agency for implementation of the Act in different states, has not been effective in many of them. It is therefore important to ensure that an effective SCPCR is in place. iii. Local authorities need to play a crucial role. Effective implementation of the Act will depend on how effective Gram Panchayats (GPs) and Nagar Palikas are. They need to be given sufficient resources to implement the Act. iv. There should be a bottom-up approach and more autonomy given to schools. These should then be monitored through independent mechanisms.

Innovations
There have been many innovations in the area of classroom transactions and distribution of entitlements from which one can learn. Today, technology can be put to good use to collect information and make planning more need-based. For example, the Delhi Government has initiated online attendance of teachers. The register closes at a specified time and teachers who do not mark their presence up to that time are marked absent. Similarly, teachers desirous of seeking transfers can make online requisitions and even give their preference for the schools to which they wish to be transferred. This helps to streamline the process of attendance and transfers.

Problems With The Right to Education Act

After Indias Independence, one of the foremost concerns in acknowledging a fundamental right to education had been the problem of economic capabilities of the State. Indeed, subsequent Governments have chosen to hide under the garb of unavailability of resources in implementing National Policies on Education. Several high-level Committee Reports have debunked the myth of financial constraints and shown that the provision of free and compulsory education at the elementary level is well within the wherewithal of the State. It is this aspect that has, for the first time in over 60 years, been tacitly accepted by the Government in passing the Act of 2009. The Act clearly mandates a responsibility upon appropriate authorities to establish and maintain infrastructural mechanisms to facilitate the guarantee of this right. The mere proclamation of a right cannot tantamount to its fulfillment, and its actual enjoyment is possible only when effective institutions are in place to

guarantee that right. A right to education is ineffective in the absence of a school to ensure the enrollment of a child and to impart free, elementary education. By taking on the duty to establish a school in every neighbourhood, and stipulating conditions to aid the functioning of such schools, the Government has taken the first step in the right direction. Having stated that, there exist a number of problematic areas which need redressal in the scheme of this legislation. One of the major concerns that the Act has left unanswered, is that of free and compulsory education for children till the age of six years. While Unnikrishnan emphatically proclaimed the right of all children to elementary education till the age of 14, subsequent legislations and even the Constitutional Amendment have diluted its ambit and confined free and elementary education to children between six and fourteen. The extensive body of research (from State and civil society) on the importance of education at a pre-primary stage, our commitments to international obligations, and the rising percentage of Indias population under the age of six, further corroborates the necessity to guarantee such a right. In failing to realize the right of children to free and compulsory education, the State has not taken on board the acute social milieu which has hitherto presented problems in ensure elementary education. In order to cope with the burgeoning problem of child labour, it is important to ensure that children below the age of six are also brought within the targets of the Act. It is a social reality that children are employed from a very early age, in various circumstances within and outside their homes. Therefore it is not sufficient that the right be guaranteed only from the age of six, and must widen its scope to ensure the mitigation of child abuse in formative years. In fact, the Act makes no reference to the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 and there is no categorical statement which prohibits the employment or engagement of children, which might hinder their prospects of education. Significantly, there is no effective mechanism to enforce the right guaranteed under the Act. As provisions stated in the preceding segments indicate, a local authority having jurisdiction may take up the complaint. The provisions fail to identify the correct authority or State agency that will hear grievances and enforce the right a lesson is to be learnt from successful legislations such as the NREG Act and the RTI Act, which clearly provides for the responsible officer/agency to seek recourse under. The State and National Commissions for Protection of Child Rights may not be institutions accessed by all at the ground-level, and it is therefore important to ensure the effective and speedy redressal of concerns.

 Further, the provisions result in a situation where the local authorities are both the implementing functionaries (in school management, curriculum development etc) and grievance redressal institutions. Clearly, there would be several instances where interests conflict, which might result in an inappropriate enforcement of the right. Consequently, the States correlative duty to guarantee the enjoyment of the right is considerably affected in the absence of effective enforcement mechanisms. The Act stipulates that the State must establish a school within the limits of neighbourhood, in order to ensure free and compulsory education. However, there is no attempt made to define what a neighbourhood constitutes.Incidentally, the right of child to free and compulsory education is limited to a neighbourhood school, except in the two instances specified under S.5 of the Act. What the Act has done is to borrow the erstwhile American concept of a neighbourhood school, which was implemented in the US to bring about community harmony. The onus in the West today is on (parental) choice, and it is important to ensure that the lack of qualitative yardsticks does not impediment in the exercise of this right.Thus we are confronted with a problematic situation where parents would like to send their children to a private school X, under the 25% quota provided to them by virtue of the Act, but would probably be refused, since a Government school Y is established and operational in the neighbourhood, even if the conditions there are abysmal. This unfortunate situation ties in with the lack of qualitative requirements under the Act.

CONCLUSION

As is evident from data and feedback from respondents, there are several issues that need to be addressed for effective implementation of the RTE Act. Some of these can be resolved through legal recourse or policy changes; others will need to be addressed as the Act is rolled out. While the ultimate responsibility of providing education rests with the Government, as enshrined in the Constitution, it is evident that the Governments efforts alone will not be sufficient to provide good quality education to all. There are several pilot initiatives that have been taken up by nonstateplayers. These initiatives are improving certain aspects of education at some of the places where they are being implemented. The formulation of the RTE Act has provided an opportunity to converge different efforts by using it, with the National Policy on Education 1992 as the backdrop.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://www.right-to-education.org/node/233 http://www.right-toeducation.org/sites/r2e.gn.apc.org/files/Shantanu_Gupta_RTE%20in%20India.p df http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/EY-Right-toeducation/$FILE/EY-Right-to-education.pdf