Minutes of the First Meetirrg of the National Advisory Council (NAG) held on 26th August,

201 0

The first meeting of lhe National Advisory Council, constituted under Section 33 of the
Right of Children to Free arrd Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, was held at New Delhi
on 26th August, 2010. Minir;ter of Human Resource Development was unable to attend the
meeting on account of urgernt Parliamentary work. The meeting was chaired by Smt. Anshu
Vaish, Secretary School Edrrcation and Literacy. lt was attended by members of the NAC, Ms.
Annie Namala, Prof. Amita Dhanda, Dr. Vinod Raina, Dr. Yogendra Yadav, Prof. Mrinal Miri,
Shri Kiran Karnik, Shri K Aboobacker, Prof. R. Govinda, Prof. Krishna Kumar, Prof NIA Siddiqui
and Prof G Ravindra. A complete list of participants is attached at Annexure 1.

Smt Anshu Vaish exl,ended a warm welcome to the members, and stated tl'rat the main
agenda for this meeting is to discuss the roles and responsibilities of the NAC for advising

Government on the implenentation of the RTE Act. The Department has prepared a
presentation on the present status of elementary education, which would provide the
background for discussion. She requested Smt. Anita Kaul, Additional Secretary, Department
of School Education and Litrlracy, to make the presentation. Smt Anita Kaul gave an overview
of the status with reference to access, attendance and drop out at the elementary stage of
education. She also highligtrted the main developments that have taken place since the RTE
Act was passed in Parliarnent, including inter alia the preparation of Model Rules, the
notification of the Central Rules for RTE, notifications appornting NCERT and NCTE as
academic authorities under t;ections 7 and 23 respectively, the financial estimates prepared for
meeting the prescribed nornts and standards and provisions within the time frame prescribed
under the Act. She also highlighted the proposed changes in the norms for Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan to conform to the RTE provisions. A copy of her presentation is attached at Annexure
2.

3 Prof. Yogendra Yaderv, Senior Fellow, CSDS, Delhi sought clarification as to whether
the Government had develcperd any strategy for monitoring and evaluation. Smt. Anita Kaul
stated that SSA has an e aborate monitoring and evaluation system. The DISE system,
managed by NUEPA, provid,3s for school based data on students, infrastructure, teachers, etc.
The Ministry also commissions studies/surveys on various aspects of elementary education; it
has conducted such surve)/s on out-of-school children, student and teacher absenteeism,
learning achievement, etc. F:urther, 41 Monitoring Institutions representing institutes of social
sciences and university departments of education, have been engaged to make school visits
and submit reports twice a yoar on performance under SSA.

Prof Venita Kaul, Ambedkar University stated that

there were large number of untrained
teachers and Government srould plan to revamp the
DlETs. smt. Anshu Vaish stated that the
Department was in the prooess of revising the
css on Teacher Education to improve the
existing institutional arrangement for pre-service and
in-service teacher training programmes.
Referring to section 11 of ther RTE Act relating to pre-school
education, prof Venita Kaul further
stated that the Act does not give a real mandate
to free and compulsory pre-school education
and there are no enabling t;trategies for it. secretary, Department
of School Education and
Literacy stated that the Department is in dialogue
*itn ff" Ministry of women and child
Development for strengthenirrg the pre-schoor component
of the rcDS scheme.

Dr Amita Dhanda, Prclfessor of Law, NALSAR

University of Law, Hyderabad stated that
a large percentage of out-of-school children are children with
disabilities. white welcoming the
RTE Amendment Bill as a positive step, she stated that programmatic
interventions have
concentrated largely on rentoving barriers to physical
access. Ms Anita Kaul clarified the
various interventions under r:he ssA for children with
special Needs. she stated that ssA
provides support for identificiltion, functional and
formal assessment, appropriate educational
placement, preparation of incividualized educational plan,
provision of aids and appliances,
teacher training and resourct; support, removal of architectural
barriers, research, monitoring
and evaluation and a special focus on girls with special needs. prof
MA Siddiqui, chairperson,
NCTE added that NCTE has formulated new qualifications for
appointment of teachers at the
elementary level under sec.ion 23 of the RTE Act. The new qualifications
include D.Ed
(Special Education) and B.tld. (Special Education)
as a quaiification for appointment as
teachers in elementary schoo s.

Dr' Vinod Raina obsetved that no State Government has yet notified
Rules under the
RTE Act' Further, certain notifications must be made, including
notifications under Section 29
notifying the academic authority, notifications for'local authorities'
responsible for implementing
the provisions of section 9 o1'the RTE Act. He stated that the Central
Government and the
State Governments must givt: priority to implernentation issues.
He also stated that a clear
distinction needs to be drawn letween the monitoring role of the
NcpcR and the scpcRs and
the monitoring and evaruation by the imprementing agencies.

7
Prof R Govinda, Vice Chancellor NUEPA stated that teacher shortage
is the biggest
problem in the implementatiorr of the RTE Act. He
suggested that a Task Force should be
constituted in each State to :tddress this problem. He stated that the pTR
for each school
should have been notified by now, but no State Government has
issued such notifications.
8

Prof Vinod Raina statec that there is need for convergence and coordination
amongst
various Ministries/Departmentt: such as Women and Child Development, Social
Justice and

Empowerment, Panchayati flaj, Labour

Department, and structures such as Inter-departmental
Standing committees need t:o be created
for such coordination, both at the level of the
centre
and the States.

9 Prof Annie Namala, Executive Director, csEl, New Delhi stated that
the Department
should undertake an asses{;ment of teachers from
the perspective of scs, srs and other
marginalized children' Teachers should be oriented
and trained from this perspective, and that
it is very important to bring rn quality aspects of exclusion
into the training programmes she
recalled that nation-wide mokrilisation undertaken
at the time of the Total Literacy campaigns in
the late 1980s/ early 1990s. she suggested that a
similar nation wide campaign should be
undertaken for RTE with the active involvement
of civil society organisations. Ms Anita Kaul
stated that the Bharat Gyan \/igyan Samiti (BGVS),
which had partnered with the Government
for the Total Literacy camperigns, is undertaking mobilisation
campaigns in some districts of
seven states of orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, fularchya
Pradesh, Rajasthan, chhattisgarh, and
Uttarakhand' she stated that once the apprcrach
and strategy is clear, similar partnerships
could be evolved in respect cf other states rn,ith BGVS
and other civil society organisations.
she also stated that with help of uNlcEF and uNESCo, the
department is working on the
development of relevant TV slrots and radio jingles.
10

Prof Kiran Karnik, NASSCOM stated tlrat RTE has far-reaching

implications and has
ambitious time lines' while it had several pror,'isions for
inputs into the elementary education
system, special emphasis net:ds to be placed on the outcomes
of the various provisions. He
also stated that a strategy neads to be developed for integration
of pre-school education with
elementary education. Prof Kilrnik requested that there needs
to be a discussion on the roles
and responsibilities of the NAO.

11

In the discussion on roles and functions of the NAC, prof. yogendra yadav
stated that
in the last 60 years as big a push as this has not been given
to elementary education. The
Government has shown serious and unprecedernted commitment
to the implementation of the
RTE Act by providing substanlial financial resoLtrces for imptementing
its provisions. This is an
opportunity to improve the quillity of outcomes. Prof. Amita Dhanda
suggested that the spirit,
not the letter of the law needt; nurturing. Dr. A.nnie Nanrala stated
that NCERT and NUEPA

have been providing acadernic support for programmes of elementary

education. She
suggested that perhaps the N,\C could nuance some of their
work. prof. Govinda stated that
the NAC should not get into actual execution or monitoring, but should create proactive
a
support system, undertake research and evaluation and create
a better public interface. prof

Mrinal Miri suggested that mull;iple agencies have been given responsibilities
for enforcing the
law, including Central and State Governments, teachers, local bodies, etc.
He suggested an
interaction with representatives; of these bodies. Prof. venita Kaul stated
that the NAC would
not have the capacity to monitor, but given the r,nride and varied expertise in the
NAC, it can set

certain intermittent targets, unpack these

ta4gets in terms of processes and list out
the steps
required to achieve these tar.gets.

After discussion, it was agreed that:

12.

(a) NAC should meet every three months in

the initial 3 years of the commencement of the
RTE
Act;

(b) The NAc should bercome a proactive

support system for advising the central
Government on effective implementation of the RTE
Act and for thl purpose its
Members shourd intererct with various stiakehorders;

(c) Task Forces, comprising NAC Members, should

be constituted, each consisting of one
representative from thr-' Department of tschool Education
and Literacy, and drawing on
the talent of other experts in the field.
(d) The Task Force woulc be constituted on the
following areas, and members indicated
their interest the areas as below:

1)

child Entitlemerts: prof. Vinod lRaina, prof. Anita Dhanda, and prof.
shanta

Sinha

13'

2)

Teachers: Prof Govinda, prof. Mrinal Miri, prof siddiqui, prof. Venita
Kaul

3)

curriculum: Prof. Krishna Kumar and prof. G Ravindra, Director, NCERT

4)

Community Mobilization and public awareness: Dr Kiran Karnik, Prof yogendra

Yadav, Ms Annie Namala, prof. Aboobacker

5)

Research and El'aluation. Prof Yc,gendra Yadav, Prof R Govinda

and Dr Amita
Dhanda.

The taskforces would irlentify milestoner; for achieving targets in the said
areas, spell
out the processes involved in ilchieving the targets, and explicifly list out the
steps involved in

achieving the targets' The t)epartment of School

Education and Literacy woutd issue specific
orders to facilitate the work <>f the Taskforces.

14'

The NAC also apprised of the discussion that took place

in the meeting with
stakeholders on 14th August. on minority irrstitutions,
the NAC suggested

that the central

Government may consider irisuing an advisory or a guideline
to the states and UTs to ensure
that the constitutional guar:tntees under Article 29
and 30 0f the constitutions available to
minority institutions are not violated.

15.

The meeting ended vlith a word of thanks.