dear Dr. uma Chandru thank u for the letter. i believe, our first task is to achieve right to education up to age 18 the right to education should include providing of all needs of the child by the state to facilitate the child to continue its education. the state shall provide all material support to help the child bypass the poverty of the family and come out of the vicious circle
10+2 system may be more suitable where up to class ten, it shall be a general education and at + 2 there shall be diversification. At +2 level, some students pursue liberal courses and some others may pursue job enabling courses in polytechnics or ITIs or some other vocational centres. after completion of +2 they will be around age 18 and join either a job or higher education. with regards ramesh patnaik ******************************* hi! u are the same rajagopalan!!! how r u? I thought u to be some body else because, u introduced yourself to dr v.n.sarma as if u are a new person. we are already associated in AIF-RTE i understand ur proposal for some bargain to amend the bill to make it less dangerous. but, please note that the present president is completely powerless and the bill is unanimously passed by both the houses. so, even a powerful president can not help the situation. our petition to the president is purily formal. there is no any plossibility of bargain. any attempt for bargain only liquidates the spirit of the movement which, i belkieve, we will have to carry in a wider scale. *86th amendment act,* as u know*,* excluded 0-5 age group from fundamental right to education and the present bill is formulated on the basis of the amended constitution. we may think about the possibility of going to supremecourt against 86th amendment act which stands against letter and sirit of 'unnikrishnan'. we should also fight for right to free and universal education for 15-18 age group. *abolition of child labour* in all forms is a precondition for universalisation of school education. drop out should be completely arrested and students shoud be supplied through school all their critical needs ( that is food, health servises, clothing and residence -case wise needs of the each student) to cointinue their education. right to education sould include it explicitly. *trade in education be completely banned first*. if so required, amendments to the constitution be made to affect the same. without ban on trade in education, there can not be any common school system i believe, we will have to take our struggle in a different frame work, once the president sign the bill. however we shall ask all men of letters to write to madam president to return the bill which is against SC judgement. with regards, ramesh patnaik ********************************* The RTE bill may incorporate following: 1) Why free education only upto 14 years? By that age, not even highly privileged urban students reach class 10 stage. I think this age must be increased to atleast 17. 2) The minimum school facility requires explicit definition as per the grade of study. Thus no of class rooms and facility rooms, no of teachers, laboratory,computer and library for higher classes should be clearly spelt out. I think , this is more relevant for achieving some parity with elite schools. 3) Accountability of the school functioning, similarly requires precise definition. Current method of School inspection certainly is heavily flawed. Some form of periodic social monitoring must be introduced. Dr. S. Mazumdar, Ranchi <[email protected]> ************************************** dear friends [in our career in indore] we [shiksha manch] are engaged in the field of education. we have organized a series of lectures, meetings and demonstrationsabout common school system and the right to education bill. we fully support common school system in the form of neighborhood format. i wish we could have been more active in this work. B.K.Passi<[email protected]> indore shiksha manch ********************************** Dear Dr. Sadagopal, Dr. Sharma & Dr. Patnaik, I have a few concerns & suggestions that I would like to share here . My educational background, research & teaching interests lie in the early childhood sector. I have also been doing some research in the vocational education & appropriate education arena as this a critical area that needs to be revamped. I have also taught primary school briefly & courses in anthropology & design to college students for several years. More recently, I have been focusing on government Anganwadis/balwadis & have been talking to Dr. Ashok Rao & others on how we can improve them. Also, I have worked closely with an NGO in Bangalore in 1989 & also in the early 2000s -The Concerned for Working Children (CWC), which was started by trade unionists, lawyers & other concerned people has helped organize, educate & empower working children in 8 Panchayats in Karnataka. These children have also been taught participatory research methods to identify their problems & that of their community members & have been able to self-represent themselves & demand their rights-whether it is in village panchayat meetings, state, national or international forums. I have copied Ms. Nandana Reddy who is the founder & Executive Director of CWC to this mail. I agree with many here that the exclusion of the 0-5 age group in the RTE bill must be opposed, but we must also discuss & have a set of viable alternate solutions ready to present as Dr. Ashok Rao (Delhi) has tried to do when we give the memorandum to Sonia Gandhi or the President. With regards to the memorandum- Vimala Ramachadran (education consultant) has written an Hindu article about the need to include children above age 14. Some of us in earlier mails have also raised concerns about the need for the RTE Bill to include those aged 14 years (not just 6 to 14) & above. I have been reflecting on this aspect & what I have to say below is drawn on my experiences with working children & their families that CWC works with. While universal education for those above 14 is an important concern, we must look at how we phrase our objections to this aspect of RTE carefully. We are of course most concerned about the poorer children. Other parents can take care of their children's right to education in private sector if the public sector fails them. The reality in our country, which most of us here know well, is that Child Labor is mainly from poor families & it is not magically going to disappear because of a universal education act, however well intentioned. It is a viscious cycle & these children have to work to support their families, like their parents had to before them & their children may have to in the future, unless their economic, political, social & cultural contraints are miraculously removed. Whether they are below or above age 14, they can not afford the luxury of the "normal" (whatever that means to policy makers or each of us) forms of education & it doesn't even make sense. While "compulsory" education "upto" (this term incidentally does not include age 14- better to replace "to" with "through" to include the number that follows after whether its is 14 or 18 or 20 yrs) is more inclusive, it could also end up providing the wrong kind of "learning" (I prefer the term learning to education) for such children & do more damage than good if standardised. "Locally appropriate" forms of education with a "flexible schedule" is critical for working children.Besides awareness of their rights,etc, they require opportunities for skill based learning & hands on vocational education, with guaranteed apprenticeship & placements which NGOs like CWC & others have been offering. As experienced educationists & co-learners, most of us surelly will agree that the kind of learning methods that these children need as well as what other children require will also vary. We must therefore. allow for a flexibility in the education methods & tools & be wary about advocating a single standardized universal model for India. Finally-while I hope the type of schooling the state provides will meets the needs of all types of children, it should permit choice. Parents & their children should have the choice to different approaches of learning. This should include the right to home school their children if they don't like the form of schooling the state has chosen to provide, as long as the decision is not based on discriminatory reasons-for eg-a parent's reason being "I will send not send my child to that school because it has Dalit children or a Dalit teacher" would be a discriminatory one, but a parents decison to remove a child who is not getting the ASD or other special needs/gifted child curriculum or other support needed etc & home school him or her would be a valid one. At the same time, the state should appoint an independent counseller & a social worker to look into these cases & verify the reason for withdrawal of the child and ascertain if the child is being properly homeschooled, is not being abused or harmed by parents & child & continues to have the opportunities for the type of socialization the child requires for healthy development. Kind regards, Uma V Chandru Anthropologist & Educator Center for Health & Educational Technologies Executive Trustee, International Institute for Art, Culture and Democracy (IIACD) Email: [email protected] [email protected] *********************** -- Dr.V.N.Sharma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dr.V.N.Sharma "Those who have the privilege to know, have the duty to act." Albert Einstein "The only thing necessary for Evil to Flourish is for good men to do nothing" Edmund Burke
