New Education Policy, Flaws in Right to education Act

New Education Policy

The New National Policy on Education has tried to address these deficiencies and challenges, along with the need to sharply increase the quality of Indian education, across the board. It offers a framework for change, make education modern with optimal use of technology, without compromising on India’s traditions and heritage.

Why Needed?

• Globally average spending on education is 4.9% of GDP while in the case of India it is just 3.4%.
• Dearth in the availability of good quality teachers
• Insufficient focus on research and creativity
• Money laundering in the name of capitation fees
• Poor employability of graduates
• Political interference especially in the higher education
• Insufficient focus on teaching values and morality
• Despite having number of premier education institutes, only one features in top 500 world universities

Salient Features of the draft new education policy 

• Increase public spending on education from 3% to 6% of GDP
• Pre-school education for children in the age group of 4 to 5 years
• Norms for learning outcomes will be developed & applied uniformly to both private & government schools
• Discontinuation of no detention policy after class V (Sec 16 of RTE)
• Skill development programmes in school & higher education system for improving employment opportunities
• Compulsory certification for teachers in government and private schools
• Merit based norms and guidelines for recruitment of teachers
• An independent mechanism for disbursal of scholarships and fellowships in higher education.
• Open & Distance learning + MOOC courses and programmes
• Thrust on Research & Innovation into the curricula of higher education
• Performance-linked funding of higher education institutions to encourage excellence and efficiency
• Curriculum will cover the issues of social justice and harmony
• National Fellowship Fund – tuition fees, learning materials and living expenses for about 10 lakh EWS students
• National Fellowship Fund – tuition fees, learning materials and living expenses for about 10 lakh students
• Restrict political activities in collage, derecognize caste & religion based groups
• Priority has also been given to Curriculum Renewal and Examination Reforms

Flaws in Right to education Act 

Aims to provide primary education to all children from 6-14 years of age – However, even after 7 years, the provisions and implementations of act are associated with several issues –

• Disbursal of less funds by central government
• Mismatch is found in the unspent balances at the end of the year with opening balances of succeeding years
• Retention of huge balances by state governments and non -adherence to expenditure norms
• Children with special needs are not provided with transport, aid and appliances as envisaged in the act
• Provision of child support and child tracking is almost non-existent after admission in school
• Even after six years of implementation, children from EWS are struggling to find their seats in schools –

• Slow reimbursement of fees from state governments to the private schools, takes almost 2 years
• Lack of awareness about the rule among the citizens especially in the rural area
• Unwillingness on the part of private schools and even the states to incur additional expenses
• Most states have either unclear rules or not implementing this provision

Section 16 of RTE Act 

• The students up to class VIII are automatically promoted to the next class without being held back even if they do not get a passing grade.
• Detention system led to increased dropouts among students, especially from economically and socially weaker sections, who cannot afford costly private education.
• To overcome this, no detention policy was brought so that an environment free from fear, anxiety and stress can be provided to children in order to learn and grown on their own pace and at the same time dropouts can be reduced as well.

Challenges 

• Schools opined that it has become a challenge to ensure minimum learning levels among the children
• Because of this clause students have developed a lackadaisical attitude towards study
• Parents also didn’t bother as their children cannot be held back in the class
• A study found that every second Class V student in rural India can’t read the text of a class three levels below.
• Even Niti Ayog has called for the revision of this provision of the Act.

The poor learning outcomes of schools are caused by many factors such as poor student teacher ratio, lack of training of teachers, monitoring, availability of basic infrastructure, school and home environment etc. Government can’t implement only the no-detention in letter and spirit and not adhere to other parameters. Bringing back the old pass-fail system without making proper course correction in other areas will undermine the egalitarian promise of the RTE.