New education bill to be challenged

Updated on: Thursday, August 06, 2009

New Delhi: Discontented over provisions of the education bill passed in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday to ensure free and compulsory education to children aged 6-14 years, a leading educationist on Wednesday protested the 'highly flawed bill' and said he will challenge it in the Supreme Court.

Rejecting Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal's claim that it was a 'historic legislation', eminent educationist Anil Sadgopal said, 'It will be the most unfortunate day when the bill eventually becomes legislation.'

According to him, many educationists and civil rights groups are organizing a protest on Friday against the bill at the Jantar Mantar.

Sadgopal, a former member of the 2005 Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) headed by Kapil Sibal to work on the right to education legislation, said, 'The bill will help the private sector schools and in no way provide for equal educational opportunities to all.'

'Will the private schools stop charging fees from children aged 6 to 14 years after this? The bill is silent,' Sadgopal told sources by phone from Bhopal.

'It provides for 25 percent reservation to children from backward and economically weak sections. It doesn't reveal if they would sit in the same classroom. Will the private schools sit such children with the fee-paying ones?'

'It is yet to become a law and awaiting the presidential assent. We plan to file public interest litigation in the Supreme Court challenging the bill, and will call on President Pratibha Patil to return it,' he said.

When told that there was at least some legislation that finally guarantees children the right to education, Sadgopal said, 'There is already such a guarantee in the constitution of India; you don't need another law for the purpose.'

He said there was 'not a word on pre-primary education' while a neighbourhood school had not been defined and the legislation left it open to the states to decide on it.

'We presented to her that the bill had been introduced and passed (then in the Rajya Sabha) without a single public hearing for a legislation with such far-reaching consequences,' he said.

Sadgopal, rights activist Medha Patkar and others also called on Speaker Meira Kumar on July 23 under the banner of All India Forum for Right to Education.

New education bill to be challenged

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