A giant step for India’s children

Free & quality education till Class 8 for children between the ages of 6 to 14 is now a basic right in India, and anyone seeking to come in the way of a child seeking to claim this right will have to pay a fine of Rs 10,000. Primary school] enrolment for children up to the age of 10 years has been a rising trend in the country since the 1970s, and yet the enormity of what has transpired will perhaps take some time to sink in. With the Lok Sabha passing the Right to Free & Compulsory Education Bill earlier this week, India joins the club of developing nations that have made their intention plan to mount a massive assault on illiteracy arising from the condition of poverty. Human resources development minister Kapil Sibal showed modesty when he referred to the attainment as ‘historic’, for the term is used much too lightly nowadays. Indeed, if we are able to translate words into action, we would have crossed a crucial barrier that separates the developed country or society from the still trying to get there. So important is education as a determinant of advancement, indeed of power, that former US President Bill Clinton had once described it as a matter relating to national security. A member of a society without basic reading & writing skills can never hope to achieve full citizen hood in the sense that such a person cannot give full expression to his or her potential & aspirations both for the individual in question as well as for the community.

  The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, of course. While 11^th Five Year Plan’s allocation for health & education is higher than ever before, the government may be required to pump in more resources for primary & elementary education if it is to signal to the authorities at all levels that it is sincere about implementing the recent law that gives teeth to the Constitution Amendment Bill on free & compulsory education passed seven years ago. We have to keep in view the stark fact that India has the largest number of children out of school. Although the enrolment numbers are rising trend (and India is well placed to meet the target of universal primary education set out in the Millennium Development Goals of the UN), we are well behind another great developing country, China, in this respect. Currently about 21 million children are out of school, or 50 percent of that category for South Asia as a whole. While the current national primary enrolment percentage stands at a healthy 83 percent, and the absolute numbers are also higher, it is been noted that the figures for the school going of the poorest 20 percent households in the country actually fell in 2006 as compared to 6 years earlier, from 9.8 million to 9.4 million. If we want reality to be expressed through policy, such data needs to be correlated with the data for children in the labour force. Official statistics places this at 13 million, or 17 percent of the total work force (for working children who are below 15 years of age). The unofficial are much more dauting. On average, three-fourths of primary school children- and therefore probably also elementary school children, the subject matter of the bill just passed- are rural, and most of them are girls. Therefore, striking a blow for education must be accorded a higher priority in the villages. This must be reflected through appropriate financial allocations and vetting for quality for teachers & course content. But the day is not far when the demand will be raised to create an environment in which young people with basic literacy/education can be enabled to find work, if the country is to move forward with the growth plan.