write article on right to education act
Answers
India has the largest student population in the world with over 13.5cr pupils in primary education followed by China at over 12.1cr pupils at this level. With a literacy rate of 61% India ranks a disappointing 172nd on this front. Educating such a large population is not only an expensive task but also a very difficult one. Of the nearly 200 million children in the 6 to 14 age group, more than half do not complete eight years of elementary education, as never enrolled or dropouts. Of those who do complete eight years of schooling, the achievement levels of a large percentage, in language and mathematics, is unacceptably low.
Firstly, there is the problem of access. School education is simply unavailable to the vast number of children in the country. During the last few decades, there has been some progress in improving enrolment. The gross enrolment ratio (GER) from Classes I to VIII was 94.9 per cent and from Classes I to XII, 77 per cent. [1] Even these enrolment figures are generally rigged and exaggerated for various administrative and political purposes. Moreover, the attendance has generally been found to be at least 25 per cent below enrolment and the drop-out rate from Classes I to X was 61.6 per cent; and in a State like Bihar it was above 75 per cent. Among those who drop out, the percentage of children belonging to the Scheduled Castes in the country as a whole was 70.6 and of the Scheduled Tribes, 78.5. In Bihar, the figure was close to 90 per cent for both the categories. The net result is that a sizeable percentage, as much as 30 per cent, of children in the school-going age in India are out of school; the percentage is as high as 50 in Bihar (1.5 crores out of three crore children in the school going age-group).
Even though nearly all educationally developed countries attained their current educational status by legislating free and compulsory education – Britain did so in 1870 – India has dithered and lagged behind in introducing such legislation, with grave consequences.