Is it Right To pass The Rigth To Education Bill ??

It is indeed an eye opener for all the citizens of our country about the historic bill that has finally been passed by our Government, which according to me should have been passed at least 60 years back. Yes, you are right, I am referring to the "RIGHT TO EDUCATION BILL."(Passed on the 1st April 2010). The attempt made by the government to bring about a change in the primary education in India is really appreciative which can bring about a transformational change to the society. Education has always been a subject of political negligence and budgetary ignorance over the years. Even this year's Union budget did not have adequate financial allocation for Education which according to me has high return on investment. But with the passage of this bill, it seems as if the wheel of fortune is reallt revolving. This Act promises to deliver free and compulsory education to every children till the age of 14 all across India.

But what I feel is whether this Bill can actually be executed thoroughly or not given the infrastructure and political scenario prevailing in our country. The first major concern is the student teacher ratio. The RTE clearly mentions that the student teacher ratio should not be more than 30:1. If we try to peep through various schools, especially in rural India,we would land up seeing that the student teacher ratio is 50:1 !!! With surveys showing that nearly 5 lakh positions vacant for primary teachers, it is indeed a daunting task for the government to attain such a ratio. The dire situation is such that in Bengal the SSC is even taking candidates who have secured a less that 40% in the SSC exam in order to fill up the vacancies !!!!

The second objective of the Bill is that all primary schools are required to reserve 25% of their seats for under privileged students. Any deviations from this would result in strict legal and financial punishments. But my question to everyone is that has the government given it a thought of the expenses that are to be borne by the parents to send their children to a school?? The reserved seats give a relief from the tuition fees but does not give exemption from other expenses like the cost of school books, co-curricular fees and other development fees which are very high in good private schools.

Another though provoking data is that surveys show that the expenses of sending a child to a school has increased by a gigantic 150% in the last 6years where as the income of an average middle class family has increased by only 35%. So, do we really think that the parents of such children would be able to send their children to school and bear this extra burden of expenditure?? Because of this the drop out rate will not change at all. Another crucial thing is the budgetary allocation for this program. The Finance Commission has provisioned 25000 crores and the Center has provided a frugal amount of 15000 crores towards the same which according to me is far below than what is required to make this Act a successful one on a pan India basis.

So, would like to conclude by saying that the RTE should have been one of the fundamental right of every citizen. We all say that 70% of our population is in rural India, but have we ever tried to think if those villagers actually understand the true meaning of the word "DEMOCRACY"?? People have been purposely made to remain illiterate so that they question about their basic needs and requirements for their existence. Given all these stringent conditions it would really be interesting to find out if the government succeeds or not.