CRY launches campaign to amend Right to Education act
The NGO demanded that children below six years as well as above 15 years up till 18 years, should be included in the ambit of this act. Further, schools should have qualified teachers and proper facilities within a KM of every habitation.
IF SOMETHING is free, should you be forced to pay for it? A right is something that is inalienable. Citizens, especially those with little purchasing power, cannot be forced to pay for what should come free.
In view of this, CRY (Child Rights and You), a pioneering child rights organisation in India, has launched a nation-wide campaign called “ Do what is right”, urging all concerned citizens to understand and demand for an amendment in the recently passed Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act -2009.
Addressing a press conference, on Friday, November 20, at Kolkata, CRY's director Dipankar Majumdar said,“The upcoming winter session is an opportunity to ask the government to amend the act and make its provisions truly reach each and every child in the country. We at CRY as well as our 200 NGO partners are going to sign the charter. We shall also reach out to citizens and explain the act and its implications. We hope to collect half a million signatures.”
He added, “The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education. It was duly passed by the Indian government in 2009. However, due to a few loopholes, it provides unequal access of children to this fundamental right and therefore needs an immediate amendment.”
The NGO has demanded that children below six years as well as above 15 years up till 18 years, should be included in the ambit of this act. Further, they wish to ensure that schools have qualified teachers and proper facilities within a kilometre of every habitation.
Currently, children above fifteen years of age, are excluded from the benefits of such a programme. Secondly, there is no minimum standard defined for teachers, school infrastructure and basic facilities including drinking water, toilet, classrooms, teacher-student ratio. Similarly, even though it has proven that a child learns best in the language spoken at home, the act does not specify mother-tongue education as a medium of instruction, in addition to learning other languages.
Further, they have demanded a clear provision for allotment of ten per cent of India's GDP to education. CRY hopes to bring these demands to the attention of the government. This campaign was initiated from November 14, better known as Children's day.
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