HRD ministry seeks Rs 45,000 cr every yr to implement RTE

The HRD ministry has sought Rs 45,000 crore every year from the next financial year to implement the watershed Right To Education law. It is almost double than what the ministry had received for elementary education in the 11th five year plan.

Updated on: Aug 9, 2011, 24:13:32 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The HRD ministry has sought Rs 45,000 crore every year from the next financial year to implement the watershed Right To Education law. It is almost double than what the ministry had received for elementary education in the 11th five year plan.

In a presentation made to the Planning Commission for 12th five year plan starting from 2011-12, the ministry complained that although Rs 1.84 crore was allocated for elementary education in the 11th plan the final allocation was just Rs 1.44 crore, thereby hampering the implementation of the RTE.

The law provides for mandatory education to all children in the age group of 6-14 years of age. Under its flagship programme Sarva Siksha Abhiyan the ministry has been able to achieve over 95 % of enrollment at primary level the quality of education being delivered is still an issue of concern.

Anshu Vaish, secretary department of school education and literacy, told a panel’s sub-group highlighted the shortage of teachers as a major reason for not desirable levels of quality of education in schools.

R Chandramohan, advisor (education) in the ministry said over one million additional teachers have been deployed but there was very little amelioration in learning levels, reading and comprehension skills. "Wide gaps in quality of education in terms of schools by management, region and social and gender is a matter of concern," he said.

Vaish emphasized on a need for allocation of Rs 45,000 crore per year to bring all the schools under the ambit of SSA-RTE harmonization, which could be 65 % the Centre will pay to states under fund sharing mechanism.

The ministry, however, wants differential funding pattern for educationally backward states such as Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh to bring out of school children into the education fold.

Having an open school even for elementary education was an alternative suggested by National Institute of Open Schools (NIOS) to provide education to out of school. The NIOS provides open schooling only at secondary and higher secondary levels.

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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