The Right of children to Free and Compulsory Education Act(RTE act 2009) came into force from April 1, 2010. According to RTE act, every child in the age group of 6-14 years will be provided eight years of elementary education in an age appropriate classroom in the vicinity of his/her neighborhood. Recently NGO named Pratham, brought out Annual Status of Education Report 2012[ASER] and unearthed how pro-poor polices of government are u-turning into horribly anti-poor!
According to ASER report 2012, 29.1 percent of children in class V couldn't solve a two digit subtraction problem and only 30 percent of class III students could read a class I text book. Latest report stated that, learning-quality levels has been deteriorated after the RTE act. Let us find out the causes and remedies for the same.
In order to attain cent percent universal primary education enrollment ratio and to reduce education stress levels, RTE act envisaged that, scrap all exams and assessments up to 8th class. This very ill-conceived initiative reserving the rural school children only for future MGNERGA workers[unskilled manual workers]. If we go in this direction then how can Indian nation will reap demographic dividend and pave the way for robust socio-economic-cultural development?
Poor teaching quality levels is one the grave concern for aspiring super power like India. One of the root cause could be poor quality at the recruitment level it self. e.g. recently former Haryana chief minister found guilty in teachers recruitment scam and it might be pan Indian phenomena. So need of the hour is revamp teacher recruitment and make teachers more accountable to the parents, local community and gross root democratic structures[PRI's]
In the knowledge, globalized and competitive society quality of education is imperative. Here teachers role is instead of focusing only on syllabus completion, should also adopt innovative pedagogic practices, extra curricular and service based learning systems.
Re-innovate the traditional teacher training systems, enhance the quality of in service training and ensure that every teacher should complete training in true spirit rather than business as usual approach. Enhance the teachers ability, aptitude and up to date knowledge levels according to globalized world then only teachers can impart knowledge based education to the students.
Undoubtedly RTE act 2009, improved primary education enrollment ratio, infrastructure facilities and girls toilets. Challenge could be recruiting more humane, sensitive teachers to put our society into equality, egalitarian and gender sensitive.
Finally good teachers are the building block of any progressive society, testimony for that is you and me are here because of them!
Suneel Anchipaka
anchipaka.suneel@gmail.com
Well said! even after more than six decades of independence,our country could gain very little in the very basic aspect of a developed nation. Although it may seem to be a far sighted vision, since I am from a village which didn't even have a road connectivity till recent years,I can absolutely understand the immediate necessity concerning facilitation, regulation, and monitoring in health and education at the village level. Improvement in primary enrollment ratio, infrastructure and girls' toilets is something to be glad about while decline in the quality of education is of grave concern. In villages, since most of the students are children of uneducated and illiterate parents, the child faces much more difficulty in learning by himself. Hence, teachers in villages should be able to play a double role. But the current scenario is the other way round. A good teacher who enhances the intellectual development of a student can transform his life forever. Apart from increase in the number and quality of teachers, an independent regulatory mechanism wherein an individual authority monitoring the quality in schools is required at the village level.This authority should be directly answerable to the sarpanch who inturn should be answerable to the revenue divisional officer.
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