Madrasas, vedic schools to be kept out of RTE

The union government has decided to exempt Hindu and Muslim religious schools from the provisions of the Right To Education Act (RTE).

Updated on: Nov 22, 2011, 01:24:36 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Both Hindu and Muslim religious schools will get exemption from the provisions of watershed Right to Information Act, the government has decided.

Number of religious organisations had sought exemption of their schools from the law as both mode of teaching and learning was different from conventional schools.

Zafaryab Zilani, convenor of the Shiksha Sangharsha Sanyukt Morcha said if necessary changes were not made in the RTE, madrasas and vedic schools will have to be closed as they will loose their affiliations.

The RTE law provides for 25% reservation for economically weaker sections, a specific student teacher ratio, mandatory school management committee and no annual examination till elementary level, in addition to free education to children in 6-14 age group.

There are about 3,000 vedic pathashalas (schools) in India and thousands of madarsas spread across country. The Kanchi Matha, the Ahobila Matha, and the Andavan Ashram are among the major south-based vedic institutions that have signed petitions seeking exemption from the Act.

Although the HRD ministry had earlier said these religious schools were not covered citing Constitutional safeguards for religious institutions, a decision has now been taken to insert an explicit provision in the RTE law to have clarity.

There was apprehension in some political quarters that the RTE law can be misused to close down madarsas which fail to comply with its norms. "The right to education says that its provisions will be applicable to all schools," a government official said, and there is a need to specify the exemptions clearly.

HRD minister Kapil Sibal has told the ministry officials to end the ambiguity in the law regarding minority institutions and the changes have been circulated for law ministry's approval.

Another amendment in the RTE law is already pending with the Parliament regarding special needs of differentially enabled students in schools. The ministry has decided to incorporate provisions to ensure that RTE does not hamper education of such students.

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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