What is the act about?

 Every child between the ages of 6 to 14 years has the right to free and
compulsory education. This is stated as per the 86th Constitution
Amendment Act added Article 21A. The right to education act seeks
to give effect to this amendment
 The government schools shall provide free education to all the
children and the schools will be managed by school management
committees (SMC). Private schools shall admit at least 25% of the
children in their schools without any fee.
 The National Commission for Elementary Education shall be
constituted tomonitor all aspects of elementary education including
quality.

The text of the entire act can be  Read Here

Main features of Right to Education 2009 act

History of the act

December 2002

86th Amendment Act (2002) via Article 21A (Part III) seeks to make free
and compulsory education a Fundamental Right for all children in the age
group 6-14 years.

October 2003

A first draft of the legislation envisaged in the above Article, viz., Free and
Compulsory Education for Children Bill, 2003, was prepared and posted on
this website in October, 2003, inviting comments and suggestions from the
public at large.

2004

Subsequently, taking into account the suggestions received on this draft, a

 revised draft of the Bill entitled Free and Compulsory Education Bill, 2004,
was prepared and posted on the http://education.nic.in website.

June 2005

The CABE (Central Advisory Board of Education) committee drafted the

‘Right toEducation’ Bill and submitted to the Ministry of HRD. MHRD sent
it to NAC where Mrs. Sonia Gandhi is the Chairperson. NAC sent the Bill
to PM for his observation.

14th July 2006

The finance committee and planning commission rejected the Bill citing the
lack of funds and a Model bill was sent to states for the making necessary
arrangements. (Post-86th amendment, States had already cited lack of funds
at State level)

19th July 2006

CACL, SAFE, NAFRE, CABE invited ILP and other organizations for a

Planning meeting to discuss the impact of the Parliament action, initiate
advocacy actions and set directions on what needs to be done at the district
and village levels.

FAQs

1.      Why is the Bill important?

The Bill is important because it is the first step in the direction of the
government’s active role in ensuring implementation of the Constitutional
Amendment. And as important, the Bill:

 Legislates provision of free and compulsory elementary and

secondary education
 Provides for a school in every neighborhood
 Provides for a School Monitoring Committee – elected
representatives of the community to ensure proper functioning
  Mandates that no child in the age group 6-14 shall be employed

All this are right steps to lay the foundation for the development of a
common public school system that can provide quality education to all the
children, thus preventing exclusion of socially and economically
disadvantaged population.

2.      Why is the chosen age group 6 - 14?

The bill focuses on providing primary to high school education
compulsorily to all children and also the education given in this age group
would be the ground work for their future.

India clears right to education bill 

Six years after an amendment was made in the Indian Constitution, the
union cabinet cleared the Right to Education Bill. It is now soon to be tabled
in Parliament for approval before it makes a fundamental right of every
child to get free and compulsory education.

More than six decades after Independence, the Indian government has
cleared the Right to Education Bill that makes free and compulsory
education a fundamental right for all children between the ages of 6 and 14.

The Union Cabinet has cleared the long-pending Right to Education Bill,
which promises free and compulsory education to every child. The move
should provide a much needed boost to the country’s education sector.

Key provisions of the Bill include: 25% reservation in private schools for
disadvantaged children from the neighbourhood, at the entry level. The
government will reimburse expenditure incurred by schools; no donation or
capitation fee on admission; and no interviewing the child or parents as
part of the screening process.

The Bill also prohibits physical punishment, expulsion or detention of a

child and deployment of teachers for non-educational purposes other than
census or election duty and disaster relief. Running a school without
recognition will attract penal action.

Observing that it was an important promise to children, as education would

become a fundamental right, India’s Finance Minister P Chidambaram said
that it would be the legally enforceable duty of the Centre and the states
to provide free and compulsory education.

He added that the human resources ministry would release the text of the
Bill after consulting the Election Commission, in view of assembly polls in
some states.

The Group of Ministers (GoM) entrusted with the task of scrutinising the
Bill cleared the draft legislation early this month without diluting its content,
which includes the contentious provision of 25% reservation in private
schools at the entry level, for disadvantaged children in the neighbourhood.
Some see this as a way of getting the private sector to discharge the State’s
constitutional obligation.

The Right to Education Bill is the enabling legislation to notify the 86th
constitutional amendment that gives every child between the age of six and
14 the right to free and compulsory education. But it has been 61 years in
the making.

In 1937, when Mahatma Gandhi voiced the need for universal education he
met with the same stonewalling about cost that dogs the issue today. The
Constitution left it as a vague plea to the State to “endeavour to provide free
and compulsory education to all children up to age 14”, but access
to elementary school still remains elusive today.

It was only in 2002 that education was made a fundamental right in the 86th
amendment to the Constitution.

In 2004, the government in power, the NDA, drafted a Bill but lost the
elections before it could be introduced. The present UPA’s model Bill was
then lobbed back and forth between the Centre and the states over the
matter of funding and responsibility.

Critics of the Bill question the age provision. They say children below six
years and above 14 should be included. Also, the government has not
addressed the issue of shortage of teachers, low skill levels of many
teachers, and lack of educational infrastructure in existing schools let alone
the new ones that will have to be built and equipped.

The Bill had earlier faced resistance from the law and finance ministries on
issues involving the states’ financial contributions. The law ministry
expected problems toarise from the 25% reservation, while human resource
development ministry estimates put the total cost at Rs 55,000 crore every
year.

The Planning Commission expressed its inability to fork out the money; the
state governments said they were unwilling to supply even part of the
funding. The Centre was thus forced to think of footing the entire bill itself.

The draft Bill aims to provide elementary schools in every neighbourhood

within three years – though the word “school” encompasses a whole
spectrum of structures.

A set of minimum norms have been worked out as there’s the usual

barrier of paperwork in remote rural and poor urban areas. The State is
also obliged to tideover any financial compulsions that may keep a
child out of school.

“Laws and Bills don’t make children go to school. Initially, there will be
problems because while everyone must understand their social
responsibility, what matters is whether the right children will have access
to this programme. They say the fee component will be given by the
government, but it’s not fair to put that cost onothers,” says Lata
Vaidyanthan, Principal, Modern School, Barakhamba Road, New Delhi.

Still, educationists who’ve rooted for the Bill argue that sharing social
 responsibility should be seen as a privilege, not a burden.

Source : InfoChange India

Right To Education Bill 2005

News Items

Each child to get free uniform, books under RTE

Press Trust of India / New Delhi April 19, 2010, 17:13 IST

Each child from class I to class VIII in the country will be provided free
textbooks and uniforms, if a raodmap prepared by the Centre to implement
the Right ToEducation Act (RTE) is accepted by the states.

The roadmap to implement the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory

Education Act was discussed at a meeting of state Education Secretaries
recently.

According to the minutes of the meeting,

 Nearly 7.8 lakh additional classrooms and seven lakh girls' toilets will
have to be created to implement the new law which has come
into force from April 1. The government will spend Rs 1.71 lakh
crore in the next five years for implementing the Act.
 Each child will be provided uniforms at Rs 400 per annum. Many
states are already providing uniforms from their own budget. "But the
uniforms will have tobe provided by the state governments. They
need to agree to this provision and incorporate it in their rules," a
HRD Ministry official said.
 Every child will be provided free textbooks while a child with special
need will get Rs 3,000 per annum for inclusive education. Similarly,
Rs 10,000 will be given for home-based education for severely
disabled children.
 There will be a requirement of additional 5.1 lakh teachers to meet the
pupils-teacher ration of 30 for one as per the RTE Act. In UP, there is
 a requirement for 1.5 lakh teachers, followed by Bihar and Gujarat
(0.5 to one lakh each), according to the minutes of the meeting.
 The Rs 1.71 lakh crore will be spent on provision of access,
infrastructure, training of untrained teachers and for intervention
for out-of school children. The teachers' salary and civil work will
have maximum financial requirements of 28 per cent and 24 per cent
respectively.
 Nearly 17 per cent of the total estimate will be spent on child
entitlement, while nine per cent will go to special training for out-of-
school children. School facilities will require eight per cent of this
money and inclusive education will need six per cent.
 The 7.6 lakh untrained teachers will be provided training in next five
years. Maximum number of untrained teachers are in Bihar,
Jharkhand and the northeastern states.
 The RTE stipulates barrier-free education for children with special
needs andone classroom per teacher. About 7.8 lakh additional
classrooms will be required. Majority of these classrooms will be
Uttar Pradesh and Bihar (2.5 lakh each) followed by West Bengal (1.3
lakh) and Assam (30,000).
 There are nearly 27,000 'kuchcha' school buildings which will have
to be upgraded. Nearly seven lakh toilets for girls will be required,
including 90,000 in Bihar, 63,000 in Madhya Pradesh and 54,000
in Orissa. About 3.4 lakh schools will require drinking water facility.

Source: Business Standard