WE THE PEOPLE
Under Article 370 of Constitution of India, J&K is exempted from most of legislations passed in Indian Parliament
But Teachers, Students urge State Government to Speedily Implement Right to Education Act
By: Mirror News Service
Srinagar: As stated earlier in our two series that the "Right to Education Act" came into force from April 01, 2010 and with the implementation of this Act, India joined the league of the select few countries in the world where education is a fundamental right.
Under the realms of this Act, “Education is a fundamental right for children in the age group of 6-14 years”. The 86th Constitutional amendment making education a fundamental right was passed by Parliament in 2002. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, a law to enable the implementation of the fundamental right, was passed by Parliament last year. With both the Constitutional Amendments, the new law has come into force from the 1st April.
However, the Act will not be implemented in the Jammu & Kashmir State, as J&K is accorded special provisions under Article 370 of the Constitution of India, which exempts most of the legislations passed in the Parliament of India. Instead, under the Constitution of Jammu & Kashmir, the state's own Legislative Assembly has the option of (a) voting to "extend" a Union Act to its own state using a special legislative procedure, (b) voting to enact a state-specific law of its own using the traditional state-level drafting process, or (c) simply ignoring the Union Act altogether implemented in it's true spirit.
However, the sane voices and commoners of Kashmir are calling upon the State Government to speedily implement this landmark Act in the J&K State as well. Teachers and students, who are part and parcel of the education system are taking a lead in urging the government to implement this Act immediately in the state.Pertinently, the Jammu &Kashmir government had recently implemented the historical Right to Information Act, which was quite close to central level Act and is slowly changing the scenario in the State towards betterment.In the same manner all the concerned voices are echoeing that Right to Education Act would be implemented.
The provisions of this Act are quite revolutionary in nature and this makes the implementation of this Act immediately in J&K all the more important. According to this Act the private and minority schools have to reserve 25 percent seats in elementary education for underprivileged children, and any breach of the Right to Education Act will invoke punishment.
Moreover, the state government will be held responsible if the child is out of school. The school management committee or the local authority will identify the drop-outs or out of school children above six years of age and admit them in classes appropriate to their age after giving special training.
Niyaz Ahmad, a teacher said, “Through your esteemed medium, we appeal to the state government to speedily implement this magical Act. As the Right to Education will forever change the way we look at education. As we know that the “Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act”, a law to enable the implementation of the fundamental right, was passed by Parliament last year. Both the Constitutional amendment and the new law came into force very recently. The Act is full of positive facets as the new law makes it obligatory on part of the state governments and local bodies to ensure that every child gets education. At present, there are nearly 22 crore children in the relevant age group. However, 4.6 percent of these children (nearly 92 lakh) are out of school, this Act takes care of this class. The State Government should immediately implement this Act, which should be very close to the central level Act”.
Manzoor Ganie, a student said, “The Right to Education Act ia a landmark legislation.The requirement of sufficient and efficient teachers is at the core of this Act. Under this Act, the Government will have to recruit 12 lakh teachers in six months to achieve the optimum student-teacher ratio.
Within three years, basic infrastructure including classrooms and library in every school will be in place. After several decades; the Central Government is guaranteeing the freedom from illiteracy. The J&K should not lag behind and implement this Act immediately”.
Pertinently, teachers will be at the core of implementation of Right to Education act (RTE) that seeks to work towards a heterogeneous and democratic classroom where all children participate as equal partners. There are 5.23 lakh teacher posts at primary and upper primary level.
To bring the pupil-teacher ratio to 30:1 as prescribed by the RTE Act, 5.1 lakh additional teachers are required. Already, there are 5.1 lakh schools with a pupil-teacher ratio of more than 30:1. On top of that 5.48 lakh untrained teachers at the primary and 2.25 lakh at upper primary level have to acquire necessary qualification within five years of the RTE Act coming into force.
The J&K State is at the top of these negative indicators, which makes the speedy implementation of RTE more necessary for our state. Currently, the states with high percentage of untrained teachers and inadequate teacher education capacity are: Assam (55.13% untrained teachers), Bihar (45.5%), Chhattisgarh (31.32%), J&K (43.34%), Jharkhand (32.16%), Uttar Pradesh (25.87%) and West Bengal (32.15%). States like Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttarakhand have very low percentage of untrained teachers.
Ground realities suggest that the State Government should immediately implement this historical Act in the state to revolutionize the ailing education system in the state.
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