When the ruling party Congress brought the Right to Education Act, more commonly referred to as RTE, it was widely publicized that each child would get the right to education. The HRD Ministry gave large sized advertisements and employed various other means to take the message to nook and corner of the country. Aim was to create an image as if an unsurpassed feat has been accomplished.
But the ground reality turned out to be different. Upon seeing this Act from outside, it appeared as if each and every child would get educated. But instead of bringing about a change at all levels, the Act merely tried to tame the small and middle-level schools. Several schools running in poor and middle-income colonies are on brink of closure while several have closed. This has been courtesy the RTE Act.
According to a source more than 2000 schools have closed down in Mumbai alone.
Whereas this is the plight of smaller schools, the bigger schools are reaping big money. In fact they have become untamed enough to at times flout the RTE rules at will. There are so many schools in Delhi today who charge some amount on papers while in reality take a higher amount from parents. RNI correspondent visited about a dozen schools on the pretext of getting admission and found that these schools were charging from Rs. 35000 to Rs. 1.5 lakh over and above the amount that they reveal in papers. Most of the people running these schools are connected to politics in one way or the other.
When asked these schools whether the exorbitant amount they were asking for could be given by cheque. Baring one or two schools, the rest refused. Apparently all this money is being collected as black money.
Most state governments have stopped allocating lands to schools. What did the Central Government gained through reducing the number of schools in cities like Mumbai and Delhi? There is paucity of land in these cities and if somebody wishes to open a school crores of rupees will be spent on merely purchasing the land. Who would educate the poor after investing such great sums of money?
Had the Government been emphatic, it would have tried to improve upon the plight of Government run schools and given some benefits to small schools who were doing commendable job in limited resources. Instead the Act tried to lead smaller schools, who were providing better education than Government schools but lesser than the big private schools, towards closure. All this happened in the name of Right to Education Act.
Some people working in the field of education are of the opinion that this was done so as to facilitate the entry of corporate houses into education; they will get a great number of students ready for admission when they open. This tells why the corporate houses who were vying with one another to open budget hotels at one point of time are now increasingly getting into opening schools in the name of philanthropy and charity. Was the entire game plan designed to help this motive?
Some experts working in the field of education even go on to say that RTE is actually a planned conspiracy against low and middle income people. People like RC Jain, who have been associated with the education industry since years and who have been vociferously fighting against the policies of the Government go to the extent of saying that “Paramatma will never forgive Congress for the injustice it has committed towards children through bringing RTE.”
This is sheer Injustice through RTE which new central government should look into.
Source RNI
Related articles
- गालिब छुटी शराब - October 21, 2021
- गांधी जी और उनको असली श्रदांजलि - October 2, 2020
- फिल्मो में कास्टिंग काउच की हकीकत - April 24, 2018
Pradeep Sir!Salute for writing on this topic.I am in this field for the last thirty years n not seen any change.Rather situation has beengone bad to worst by this useless law RTE.Who has getting the benefits of it.To get admission in Govr school is a uphill task.Principal behaves like dictator. Teachers shoo away uneducated parents. DOE not ready to give recognition to neghbourhood schools.For years files are being rejected for one or another mundane formality. Economically weaker section facilities are being enjoyed by politician’s fourth class employees. I can go on and on this subject and will submit an article first on the attitude of principals of government schools. This entire law is a joke, it only exists on paper and has no practicality in real life. It exists to serve the mafia, owners of big schools and politicians
Good post