Amendment to Education Bill passed, disability net widened

April 25, 2012 12:23 am | Updated 12:23 am IST - NEW DELHI:

The Rajya Sabha on Tuesday passed the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Amendment) Bill 2010 that widens the net for disabled children bringing under its purview children with severe disability. Such children would have the option of receiving education at home.

It gives school management committees an advisory role in minority schools, both aided and unaided, and puts madrasas and Vedic schools and other institutions providing primarily religious instruction outside the mandate of the Act.

Moving the Bill, Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said it provided the right to receive home-based education to children with severe disabilities.

Mr. Sibal said: “It is a historic piece of legislation and will have a huge impact on quality education to children between classes 1 and 8 in the 6-14 age group.”

“The Bill will change the way we look at education. You can have a legislation but it needs to be implemented,” he said and called for involving key stake-holders, including children, parents, non-governmental organisations and schools and not just the government alone.

Mr. Sibal said parents would have the option of providing home-based education to children with severe disabilities and said the clause should not be used as an instrument by institutions to deny admission.

This is the first education bill to be passed in Parliament in two years. The Minister hoped that all pending education bills would also be passed as these dealt with the future of children. There are 13 pending education bills in Parliament.

Mr. Sibal pointed out that the amendment goes beyond the Supreme Court, which kept unaided minority school out of the purview of the Act. As per the amendment, the school management committee will not have the final authority in all minority schools and its role will be advisory.

Though not within the purview of the amendment, Mr. Sibal responded to issues raised about the 25 per cent quota for children from economically weaker sections. He said that most private schools would be happy for the money that the government would pay for taking these children in, as what the government spent was higher than what these schools spent or charged.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.