Child Rights and You claims violation of Right To Education clauses Act

Updated on: Wednesday, April 04, 2012

Two years after the implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, a grassroots-level survey conducted across several states by Child Rights and You (CRY) - an umbrella organisation of over 30 non-governmental organisations - indicated that providing free and compulsory education to all under this legislation continued to remain a big challenge.

The Act also known as the RTE Act completed two years on April 1.

A statement issued by Vijaylakshmi Arora, director of CRY (policy and advocacy), said, "There have been gross violations of several provisions of the RTE Act over the last two years. The irony is that several states are yet to put even the monitoring mechanism, stipulated in the Rights of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, in place; so we do not even know the exact extent of violations of the provisions of the Act."

So far, only 14 states have notified the formation of State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR). Apart from these, only two states have constituted the Right to Education Protection Authority (REPA).Section 31 of the Act clearly mentions that SCPCR/REPA as monitoring agencies "would examine and review the safeguards for rights provided under this Act." It also adds that these agencies would "inquire into complaints relating to child's right to free and compulsory education."

The CRY report also said that children were still denied admission in schools on various grounds, despite the Act being in place.

There are cases where admission was denied due to not having a transfer certificate, birth certificate or local residence proof. In many cases, parents had to pay admission fees and were asked to pay monthly fees, but no receipt of any kind against the paid amount was provided to the parents by the school.

There are also cases where children are being denied admission in mid-year or after half yearly school tests, the statement added.

Infrastructure also continues to be a major bottleneck in this regard, the statement said. According to the Annual Status Report of Education 2011 data, more than half the schools in India did not have separate toilet for girls. More than a quarter of schools did not possess libraries and playgrounds on their campus. Around 45% of the schools did not have a boundary wall and more than half of std II to std IV students shared classrooms with another class."It is clear that while there is an urgent need to strengthen the delivery mechanisms in the area of school education, especially at the grassroots level, there is also a need to create greater awareness at the community level to implement various provisions of the RTE Act. When the communities will be fully aware of the provisions, they would be able to claim what is due to them under this Act. This would help in effective implementation of this Act not only in letter but also in spirit," the statement said.

Child Rights and You claims violation of Right To Education clauses Act

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