Progress on Right to Education discouraging, not hopeless - CRY

New Delhi: Nearly a year after the ambitious Right to Education (RTE)
was enacted, it faces numerous challenges such as high dropout rates,
lack of schools and lack of monitoring agencies to check
implementation of the act in several states, an NGO here said on
Tuesday.

According to CRY, an international child rights organization, while
the gross enrolment ratio (GER) here is encouraging - from Class 1 to
8, it is 94.9 percent and from Class 1-12 it is 77 percent - it hardly
gives the big picture of the education scenario.

"The GER does not take into account the number of those who actually
attend school, and how many drop out. Government schools lose 25
percent of their students by grade 5, and almost half (46 percent) by
grade 8," a CRY statement said on Tuesday.

It added, "80,43,889 children in the 6-14 age group fall into the
'never enrolled' category, and are out of school."

Then again, many children are not in school simply because there is
none. The RTE Act promises free and compulsory education to all
children in the age group of six to 14.

"17,282 eligible habitations in India do not have a primary school
within one kilometre of the habitation. Within the sphere of
infrastructure, 1,48,696 government schools in India are without a
building, 16,5742 schools without drinking water, and 4,55,561 schools
without toilets," it said.

"1,14,531 primary schools are single-teacher schools. So very little
progress has been made on this front," the statement added.

Also, the RTE Act mandates that state commissions for protection of
child rights (SCPCR) should be responsible for monitoring the
implementation of the act. In those states where they are not
constituted, the department of education can form a Right to Education
Protection Authority (REPA) to look into the monitoring aspect.

"However, only nine states have SCPCRs and two states in the absence
of SCPCR have constituted REPAs, thus leaving 16 states out of 27
without an authority to monitor implementation of the RTE Act," it
said.

Kreeanne Rabadi, regional director of CRY, said, "It is interesting to
note that a major portion of the allocations to education is earmarked
for the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), which, according to the
government, is the main vehicle to implement the RTE Act."

"However, our analysis says the government's allocation to the SSA has
increased by only 10.53 percent, most of which comes from the two
percent education cess on central taxes. The allocations from sources
other than that have gone down from Rs.7769.10 crore (Revised Estimate
2010-11) to Rs.7096.15 crore (Budget Estimate 2011-12). So,
insufficient budgets is an issue that needs to be addressed," she
added.

"So, the one-year-on report card is discouraging, but not hopeless.
However, what is clear is that this slow movement will not lead to any
major shifts in India's public education," Rabadi added. IANS