The Right to Education Act The children are the most precious resource of any country. The future of a country rests on the physical, mental, moral and cultural growth of the children. Education system plays an important role in shaping the future of children of a country. A sustainable and effective education system nurtures all the qualities of a child to become a resourceful citizen in future life. Large-scale unemployment and existence of under utilised labour force are the most unwanted form of human resource wastage. In a global market, a country can’t afford such an extensive wastage. To become an economic super power, India needs to create opportunities to trap the unutilised and / or under utilised human resources for capacity building. An education system, which is capable of fostering the innate qualities of the students, is what India needs most now. To meet the growing need of a vibrant and dynamic education system, the Government of India has implemented ambitious Right to Education Act (REA) in 1 April, 2010. This Act actually mandates the overhaul of school curricula and traditional examination procedures drastically. With the enactment of the Right to Education Act (REA), all the children between the ages of 6 and 14 are eligible to get opportunity of free and compulsory elementary education. The Act aims at expansion, inclusion and excellence of education system to help the children of the country to blossom into enlightened personalities. As per the new law, the schools need to have certain minimum facilities like adequate teachers, playground and infrastructure. The government will evolve some mechanism to help marginalised schools complying with the provisions of the Act. The Finance Commission has provided Rs 25,000 crore to the states for implementation of the Act. As per the government's estimate, there will be a requirement of Rs 1.71 lakh crore in the next five years for implementation of the Act. The plan under inclusion deals with actually implementing the Act in its truest spirit. At present, there are nearly 22 crore children in the relevant age group. However, 4.6 per cent of these children (nearly 92 lakh) are out of school. The responsibility to identify the drop outs or out of school children above six years of age and bring them within education system rest with the local school management committee and/or the local authority. The local administration will conduct household surveys and mapping of neighbourhood schools. Regular and intensive surveys will help to identify the out of school children while mapping of neighbourhood schools will act as a database. The Act makes it a right of every child to get education. It also makes it obligatory for the concerned authorities to ensure that every child gets free elementary education. The REA mandates that even private educational institutions have to reserve 25 per cent seats for children from weaker sections. It is also mandated by the act that no child shall be denied admission for lack of age proof, held back or expelled from the school before completing the elementary education. Presently, the number of students in a classroom to the teacher ratio stands at 50:1. However, the Act stipulates that the ratio should be 30:1. To maintain the stipulated ratio, at least 12 lakh more trained teachers need to be recruited. More critically, more than five lakh teachers are currently untrained whereas the Act states that all the teachers must be qualified and trained. The Central government shall develop and enforce standards for the training of the teachers. To this end, the Central government shall provide technical support and resources to the state government for encouraging and promoting innovations, researches, planning and capacity building. Special attention has been paid in outlining the school curriculum and evaluation procedure. Maintaining conformity with the values enshrined in the Constitution, curricula are to be designed focusing into all round physical and mental development of a child. Efforts to build up knowledge, potentiality and talent of a child through educational activities, explorations and discoveries in a child friendly and child-centric manner have been emphasised. One of the important tasks of the teachers is making child free of fear, trauma and anxiety and helping him expressing his views freely. The REA prohibits private tuition and mandates comprehensive and continuous evaluation of child’s understanding of knowledge and his/her ability the same. No, it is one of the most significant reforms introduced by the government in recent times. The Act has already come under severe criticism for various reasons. However, the necessity of changing age-old European model of education based on the concept of ‘individual growth’ with a more pragmatic education system based on collective prosperity is considered to be too important for sustainable development of the country.

THE RIGHT TO STRIKE SHOULD EMERGE FROM DENIAL OF JUSTICE India is well known for ‘Bandhs, Hartals and Strikes by various political parties, trade unions, employees of Government and Semi-Government orgranisations including Trade and Business Associations. The purpose and aim of such non-productive agitations are sometimes flimsy, egoistic and to show the strength, clout and superiority before the concerned authorities and their respective organizations. If we see all such rights to protest against injustice or for any genuine grievances through the same prism, it would be a prejudiced or misconceived view, as quite often there are spontaneous protests against injustice or for the survival of the weaker sections over the suppression and depression of dominant sections who have ample resources, clouts and muscle power in today’s polity. Our democracy has become a platform for implementing the might and influence of certain sections of the society who has all the wherewithal to take advantage of the weak points of our political parties and the State and Central Governments through manipulation, misrepresentation of the facts and coercing the various wings of the government machinery to cut out maximum cakes in their favour from a fluid and confused situation prevailing in our country. The Unions and their leaders are also not exception from this reality. While a section of the people are protected and promoted at the cost of the taxes paid by the citizens and resources of the country, teeming millions working in private sectors lead a hand to mouth existence and exploited from their masters and to fight for their cause no leaders are coming forward and if at all someone raise his protest, it would be ridiculed and neglected by the rest of the powerful sections who control the majority of media which should brought out such injustices and partial attitudes of the authorities and policy failures to the lime light. The recent strikes by the members of Oil Sector Officers Association for better pay based on the basics of 6th Pay Commission recommendations and the hardships they brought to the common man all over the country inspite of their fatty pay packets and other perks compared to other sectors show their immaturity in taking out the ultimate weapon of right to strike for justice, as our country is also being gripped under the global recession and many sections are struggling to cope up with the emerging scenario. The situation had gone from bad to worse in view of the strike declared by Truckers’ Association by raising unreasonable demands including abolition of toll tax. However, the widespread condemnation of the people against such strikes which caused innumerable hardships to the common man forced the Government to take stringent action against them including termination of services and imposition of ESMA finally opened their eyes to see the stark reality and thus had to retreat from their illogical decision to hold the nation to ransom for their illegitimate demands. Out of this process, though the people faced some hardships, a clear message emerged from under the carpet that no section can fool the people with unjustified demands. The emerging consciousness amongst the people on various issues shows that the Governments in power shall have to consider the feelings and difficulties of the people and the policy of appeasement to a section at the cost of their normal life shall have effective backlash and the anger and resentment expressed by them is not sorted out, the party in power has to pay a heavy price. Why it happens today? This is because of the rising awareness amongst the people due to the expansion of media coverage and increase in education amongst the citizens not only in urban areas, but in rural sectors too. Therefore, all the political parties should frame out their manifestos in the forthcoming elections by measuring the hardships, under development, poverty, illiteracy and social and economic backwardness of various sections of our countrymen and come out with true and logical solutions to ameliorate their concerns and work for fulfilling their aspirations and hopes in a liberalized and globalised economy. Now the people of India is comparing our lifestyles and social status with other similar developing and developed nations and they are evaluating the roles and actions of various political leaders and ashamed and angered over the stories of rags to riches of many leaders at the cost of poor and weaker sections, since they think that these sections are their liability and hindrance against their material progress in their political profession!