Right to Education

Right to education is the much discussed topic currently. For information RTE is the law which gives children the right for primary and secondary schooling. It is the obligation of the state and the central government to provide these basic education to the children. I personally feel the scope of the law is debatable. There are basic questions that come to my mind like: What is does this right means? It is a right of whom? If this is a right of the children then how can they make use of this right? How can a child fight for getting education?

First of all the question comes to mind is why is this right come in the first place? Is it because for drive an inclusive growth which is not possible without providing basic education? or is it because for stopping the child labour, child harassment and other forms of torture to the child? If we analyse the first cause then it seems a good cause. This will not only elevate our education standard at the village and school level but also to reduce poverty, corruption and other forms of practices which slow our economy down. Empowered people at every corner of the country will certainly be a dream and this will improve our system, fight injustice and add to our GDP in general. But all this require proper planning and will power to implement and sustain for years before the benefit starts pouring over.

The second cause is controversial. This is because law to provide basic education is not the only solution for all the problems. This should never be thought to be. This needs to be augmented with proper plan to support the social and cultural frameworks. This requires convincing the parents to send their children to go to school. Child labour is prevalent in India because of poverty and children being considered as breadwinners of families. How can we plan to educate those children unless their families are supported? This requires a major overhaul of the social strata. This needs mass awareness on the families to learn the benefits of education. How education can change their lives and empower them. There needs to be supplementary work at school level to compensate the monetary constraints.

Adding to these there are logistic problems of managing so many schools efficiently and providing the quality with equity. There is the problem of providing quality teachers who are not only skilled but also motivated to teach and keep children to classes because there is a high drop out rate at school levels too. Economic constrains are too there but can be overcome with many innovative procedures.

Overall I would say this is a step in the right direction and needs to be pursued in the proper spirit to take care of our future generation and contribute to the society.