If the Right to Education Act provides guaranteed enrolment to every child, it should also guarantee an experience of dignity and equality of the child, said Krishna Kumar, honourary professor at Panjab University, and former director, NCERT.
He was speaking at the Madras Institute of Developmental studies on ‘Equality after RTE: universal schooling and the post welfare state’. Recalling the road that the country took towards compulsory education, Mr. Krishna Kumar said that even before independence, many scholars and academicians had been reiterating the need to make education compulsory.
“While it offers a fundamental right to a child, it also additionally places responsibility on an adult citizen as well to ensure its implementation,” he said. Mr. Krishna Kumar said that the law faces impediments which arise from within the educational system and from the political and economic climate.
“A major impediment arises from the fact that the RTE creates a new category of education without much structural or internal reform of the secondary education system. Most of the major board examinations operate by the system of a ‘model answer’ according to which students are expected to answer similarly and if uniformity is what is expected of the child for success, the main purpose of learning is completely ignored right from an early grade,” he noted. Stating that the RTE Act emphasises on giving the child an opportunity to express freely, Mr. Krishna Kumar said the secondary education system will continue to cast a shadow over the spirit of the RTE. “The RTE Act demands teachers who have the ability to respond, observe and deal with children from different backgrounds. In this aspect, teacher training in the country isn’t just neglected, but unable to fulfill the demands of the RTE,” he said, reflecting on the mushrooming of teacher training institutions and the need to bring in quality.
Beyond universal education
T. Udhayachandran, additional secretary, School Education Department, who was the chair for the talk, spoke about the need to look at the RTE beyond universal education. “The role of the state in the whole process needs to be looked at and debated upon — whether it is just to fill seats or improve the overall quality of the institutions,” he said. Earlier this year, the school education department had introduced an online system for RTI applications as well, and while technology could bring about solutions to a number of concerns, there should be a focus on improving the quality of education, he said.
