Govt slapped with notice for not educating street children

In the first notice to a government under the sunshine law, Right To Education (RTE), the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights have asked the Delhi government to explain why street children in the city are not being provided minimum ‘basic education’, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Dec 1, 2009, 01:01:49 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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In the first notice to a government under the sunshine law, Right To Education (RTE), the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights have asked the Delhi government to explain why street children in the city are not being provided minimum ‘basic education’.

The notice is based on a complaint filed by a social group, Social Jurists, that identified 234 street children in the northern Delhi area of Azadpur and Jahangirpuri who are not getting education. The organisation’s stand is that there is no scheme in Delhi to provide education to street children even though the government has funds for the purpose.

“It is a violation of the basic right of the child to education provided in the RTE law notified in August this year,” said Amod Kanth, chairperson of DCPCR. “Under education guarantee scheme of Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) it is the duty of the government to provide a child an avenue to get education.”

SSA provides funds for alternative modes of education to children who cannot take admission in formal schools.

Delhi has about 3.5 lakh out-of-school children, who live either on the streets or work in unorganised sector. About 4 crore children in the city live on streets and are not covered under any formal or informal form of education. Even HRD minister Kapil Sibal had admitted that providing them education was a big challenge under RTE.

DCPCR issued a notice to Secretary, Education of Delhi Government and Commissioner, Municipal Corporation of Delhi, seeking reasons why these children were not getting education. The law provides for free and compulsory education up to Class 8 to all children in the age group 06-14 years.

Kanth said the notice is aimed at highlighting the plight of children who are not getting basic education to sustain themselves.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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