Mumtaz Alam, IndiaTomorrow.net,
New Delhi, Feb 10: Full five years after the historic Right to Education act was passed by the Parliament of the country with much fanfare, very little has changed on ground. This is the observation of civil groups including Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIO).
With an aim to aware the society of the actual status of implementation of the law, SIO, India’s largest Muslim students body, is going to organise a daylong national event “Shiksha Adalat” coming Sunday where they will make a social audit of Right to Education.
“Five years have passed since the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act or Right to Education Act (RTE) was passed by the Parliament, and Supreme Court and several high courts have fixed deadlines for full implementation of the law, but most of the states have implemented only one out of 39 clauses of RTE,” Thouseef Madikeri, Head of Education Department of SIO, told IndiaTomorrow.net.
“Several states like Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are implementing only EWS clause whereby 25% of seats are reserved for poor students. That is one issue. Other issue is that state governments are closing their own schools and getting students admitted in private schools. We call it government-sponsored privatisation of education,” said Thouseef.
Giving details about the event to be held at Indian Law Institute on 14th Feb, he said that Dr. Niranjanaradhya, National Law School, Bangalore, Ambarish Rai, National Convenor, RTE Forum and Abdullah Azzam, former AMU Students Union president will be main speakers at the event.
He also said that SIO is reviewing the status of the implementation of the law in 12 states and its representatives from those states will present report at the event. After the program, the organisation will prepare a comprehensive social audit report on the issue and present to the central government.
