Blackboard Jungle

The Right to Education Bill must return to the drawing board if it is to make a difference, says AMIT KAUSHIK

THE PASSING OF THE Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill, 2008, on July 20 this year, a full seven years after the 86th Amendment to the Constitution stipulated that “the State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years in such manner as the State may, by law, determine”, should have been an occasion to celebrate. But both public participation in the drafting process and the Bill as it has been passed leave much to be desired.

Alphabet soup The 2008 Education Bill is a diluted version of the 2005 draft

Photo: S RADHAKRISHNA

Unlike other fundamental rights, the right to education conferred on children by the 86th Amendment is conditional upon the enactment of a subordinate legislation, and for seven years several versions of this legislation were drafted and debated, while the Amendment itself was never notified. The Bill now introduced in Parliament is a watered-down version of the draft Right to Education Bill, 2005, prepared on the recommendations of a committee of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE), chaired by none other than the current Minister for HRD, Mr Kapil Sibal. As a director in the HRD ministry at the time, I was one of those who helped work on the draft, which was prepared by a sub-committee consisting of a former director of the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), two members from the National University of Educational Planning and Administration, an occasional representative from NCERT, two NGO/activist members, and two officials of the ministry (including myself). The final draft of the Bill that we prepared was discussed in a CABE meeting in July 2005, but was never actually endorsed or approved by it because many of the members of the larger committee publicly disagreed with its provisions. Except for that CABE meeting, there has been no significant public discussion of the draft Bill.

Towards the end of its last term, the UPA government introduced The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill, 2008 in the Rajya Sabha so that it would not lapse due to a change in government. This Bill, minus several of the more important provisions of the earlier version, was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development, with directions to submit its report within 30 days. But none of the Standing Committee’s recommendations (tabled in Parliament on February 18, 2009) have actually been incorporated in the version brought to vote. The Standing Committee itself held only three sessions and had no time to open the matter for a public debate, although written submissions were made to it by various members of the public.

When the Bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha, only 54 members were present for voting; according to one newspaper report, 29 of those MPs were from the Opposition! While that may or may not be true, the fact that only a handful of our Members of Parliament considered it worth their while to debate such an important legislation tells its own story about the concern for education in public life. Remarks by most members who spoke were couched in generalities, with no attention to any of the Bill’s significant provisions. Sadly, education is not as ‘sexy’ as expressing concern for the erosion of Indian values brought about by television reality shows like Sach Ka Saamna.

The Bill will allow children to go from Class I to VII without learning anything

The 2008 Bill has been criticised on several grounds. Various reports, including the Annual Status of Education Report 2008 (ASER) facilitated by the NGO Pratham, have already established that learning levels in our schools are poor, with many children in Class V unable to exercise skills they should have learnt in Class II. Combined with the automatic promotion policy, the Bill’s focus on inputs rather than outcomes will ensure that children progress from Class I to VII without necessarily learning anything, making it a right to schooling as opposed to a right to education. (Mr Sibal’s proposal to scrap the Class X exam has been criticised on the same grounds.)

To take just one example, the draft Right to Education Bill, 2005, had stipulated that after the commencement of the Act, teachers would be part of a schoolbased cadre, with each teacher being allocated to a particular school without worrying about being transferred subsequently. The 2005 Bill had also provided that their activities in the school would be supervised by the School Management Committee, comprising parents or guardians of children in the school, local representatives, persons engaged in education, etc., who would even be responsible for sanctioning leave, paying salaries, and the like. These provisions had been included respectively to deal with the menace of transfers faced by teachers and to ensure that each community assumed greater responsibility for the local school. Thanks to serious opposition by teachers’ unions, both these provisions have been removed from the Bill recently passed.

For our MPs, education is not as ‘sexy’ as concern for the erosion of values by reality TV

THE BILL does not effectively provide for accountability at any level of the system, from the teacher to the administrator. Should the State fail to meet its obligations under the Bill, it will not be penalised in any manner, nor will individual government functionaries (unlike in the case of the Right to Information Act, where failure to implement provisions carries with it personal liability for the concerned administrators).

No one who understands the idea of India can fail to be moved by the implications of The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill, 2008, for the future of India’s children. But for it to be relevant to that future, it needs to be something of which we can all be proud, something that is inclusive and sensitive to the needs of the many sections of society it impacts. This is only possible if we allow for widespread debate that takes into account the many viewpoints that are bound to exist; after seven years of delay, a further 70 days to do so will not compromise this future. Unseemly haste in ramming through this incomplete Bill will only exacerbate the problems that exist, without providing us with the solutions we need.

Kaushik was Director, Ministry of HRD, 2001-2006 and is CEO, Shri Educare

Writer's Email:
amit.kaushik@sepl.asia