Rights of Children to Compulsory Education (Amendment) Bill, 2017

Rights of Children to Compulsory Education (Amendment) Bill, 2017 was passed in Lok Sabha on 22nd July and Rajya Sabha on 1st August 2017. Proposed by MHRD minister Prakash Javadekar it brings relief to the inadequately qualified teachers.

Background

Brought by 86th amendment act, 2002 article 21 A was incorporated in the constitution followed by RTE 2009. It has been devised such that free and compulsory education has been promised to every child between the age of 6 to 14 yrs. By making it a fundamental right it puts an obligation on the state governments to take actions towards ensuring it.

Provisions regarding qualification of teachers

• According to chapter IV article 23 of the RTE 2009, any person having the minimum qualifications laid down by an academic authority authorised by central government shall be eligible for appointment
• Further, in clause 2 of the article it says that if (a) the state lacks the adequate institutions for teacher’s training or (b) the teachers  fulfilling the minimum requirements as prescribed under clause 1 are not sufficient in number, then the central govt. possess the authority to relax the minimum qualifications for a period not exceeding 5 years.
• After such a notification is issued, the appointed teachers must acquire the necessary training or degree within those five years.

For the fulfilment of this ambition govt. had hired 15 lakhs teachers who were inadequately trained or were undergraduates and so subsequently gave them time to complete the required degree of B.Ed.

• According to this act which came into effect on 1st April 2010, every under qualified teacher had to attain the required qualification within 5 years of time by 31st March 2015.
• After the specified period was completed about 11 lakh teachers still remained unqualified or underqualified with around 7 lakhs in private and 2.5 lakhs teaching in public schools.
• Under the amended bill this limit has been increased.
• The amended act says that the teachers appointed and working who have not attained the prescribed minimum qualifications for appointment to teaching by the given date of 31st March 2015 are required to do so within 4 years till 31st march 2019.
• It has given the teachers a two year window that will help them retain their professions simultaneously acquiring the desired skills.

Governmental Push

Govt. has sought to use the ‘Swayam’ platform to devise training programs for the remaining teachers. SWAYAM is an initiative of MHRD, Govt. of india. It is an indigenously designed IT platform for accessing educational courses ranging from class 9th to post graduate level. It had been developed to provide quality education at free of cost at anytime from anywhere in the world. It serves as a great platform for learning.

Now the proposed intentions of the ministry is to use this platform to train teachers in order to make them qualified for their professions. It will teach through virtual lessons which will be provided in both hard and soft copies. Under the scheme of SWAYAM Prabha, it also comes up with an innovative idea of training through 32 operationalised DTH (Direct to Home) connections. The registration fees for such courses would be moderate with 12 days of face to face training.

Debates

The opposition voices proposed various suggestions with standard of education being same throughout the country for the success of this programme to preparing the teachers for modern day challenges of dealing with children affected from dyslexia and autism syndrome.

Discussion

The biggest achievement of this initiative would be the saving of jobs of 11 lakh teachers who have already been performing their functions. Further, taking a student oriented approach, it prevents the future of lakhs of students getting destroyed due to sudden unavailability of the teachers. Also it makes it a government responsibility as much as a teacher’s to ensure that they are trained which tells us that they are not rendered entirely helpless on their own. The aspect of virtual learning will provide them with a comfortable and widely accessible learning and training opportunities. But still, training 11 lakh teachers in a two year window seems a herculean task to achieve with a question mark still hanging loose that whether after this time period the remaining teachers would be rendered jobless or the govt. taking will again extend the time limit to absorb maximum of the temporary teachers.