India passes free education bill

RPK

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India passes free education bill


The Indian parliament has approved a landmark education bill which seeks to guarantee free and compulsory education for children aged between six and 14.

The bill, passed by the lower house of parliament, will set up new state-run neighbourhood schools.

It will also force private ones to reserve at least a quarter of their places for poor children.

Currently about 70 million children receive no schooling, and more than a third of the population is illiterate.

The bill was passed by the upper house last month.

It now needs presidential assent - a mere formality, correspondents say - to become law.

'New era'

India's Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal described the passage of the bill as "harbinger of a new era" for children to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

"We as a nation cannot afford our children not going to schools," he said.

The minister said the bill covers children with disabilities and that the government is planning to set up special schools for them.

"This bill provides for the inclusion of children who are disadvantaged because of disability. The government is not only setting up special schools for them but doing all it can to provide education to them in all types of schools," Mr Sibal said.

The bill also ends widespread practices by which schools impose admission fees on parents to guarantee their children a place and bureaucrats enjoy discretionary powers on deciding who to let in.

Achieving universal education is one of the UN's Millennium Development Goals to be met by the year 2015.

Critics of the bill, however, say it is not clear how the government plans to pay for this.

Also, they say it does not cover children below the age of six and therefore fails to recognise the importance of the early years of a child's development.

They say it also does little to address India's inequitable school system under which there are vast discrepancies between well-funded private schools and state-run schools with poor quality teaching staff and infrastructure.

At the moment India spends a little over 3% of its GDP on education
 

amitkriit

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Won't change anything, Government schools are already affordable by poors (I have studied in one), problem is that who will convince those teachers to be present and show up in classrooms?

Reports say that 1 in 4 teachers remain absent, while 1 out of 4 teachers who actually show up, prefer to spend the day in staff-room.
 

S.A.T.A

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Still a welcome move and long over due.Hopefully the various state govt will look into the infrastructure issues with more resources made available.
 

Daredevil

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I hope these schools will be run by central govt. as I have no belief in many of the state's capability in running the schools.
 

Adux

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A very stupid bill, which has no sense of logisitics or funding. The babu's up there should understand the rest of the Schools in India are not working on the same way as that of Delhi. Delhi is not India,Education Minister.
 

Adux

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I hope these schools will be run by central govt. as I have no belief in many of the state's capability in running the schools.
Education is a State Prerogative very similar to Law and Order.
 

Flint

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A very stupid bill, which has no sense of logisitics or funding. The babu's up there should understand the rest of the Schools in India are not working on the same way as that of Delhi. Delhi is not India,Education Minister.
Nice to see your optimism, or let me rephrase your post "It obviously won't work, so lets just not try."

Making education a fundamental right should have been done a long time ago, never mind the resources, or lack thereof.

I wonder where we would have been today if it had been decided that it was logistically impossible to feed the entire population.
 

Daredevil

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Education is a State Prerogative very similar to Law and Order.
I know that it is a state prerogative and all states doesn't run their govt. schools equally well and I have no confidence in them that they will run any better in the future. I want the govt. schools to be run by central govt. which is much more focussed, capable and good at implementing programmes as one can see how they run Kendriya Vidyalayas (KVs). We can establish one organization to do just that.

You can say it as my wishful thinking, but that's me.
 

NSG_Blackcats

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Though education is a state subject in India we have lot of central school all over India. These Central schools are funded and run by GOI. It will be not a good idea to reject something which has not yet been started. So let’s give the new HRD minister 2 years to implement his ideas. I know it is the problem of implementations where our Govt. lacks.

Our Primary education and Higher education (research, PHD etc) are in really bad shape. Let’s see how things shape up in next 2 years. I welcome the education Bill.
 

NSG_Blackcats

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A very stupid bill, which has no sense of logisitics or funding. The babu's up there should understand the rest of the Schools in India are not working on the same way as that of Delhi. Delhi is not India,Education Minister.
Sometimes ideas work and sometimes ideas don’t. How you approach a problem often determines whether you have a solution or not. If you approach a problem by saying we cannot find a solution, it is very unlikely that you will find a solution. But if you say may be this is the way I can find a solution, you may not always find it but gives yourself a chance of finding it. --Harsha Bhogle Cricket commentator
 

EnlightenedMonk

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I hope these schools will be run by central govt. as I have no belief in many of the state's capability in running the schools.
Well, I wouldn't certainly say that about every state. I, for example went to a Government school run by the Maharashtra State Government and I got a very good education... sure, I was educated by the State Boards' syllabus and not the ICSE / CBSE compatible syllabus, but I did get a very good education...

That education has helped me hold my own despite any competition that I've had to face in my life upto now...

So, a state government school is not necessarily bad in all cases... they may be bad in some backward states, but they are well and functioning in some other states...
 

Adux

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Nice to see your optimism, or let me rephrase your post "It obviously won't work, so lets just not try."

Making education a fundamental right should have been done a long time ago, never mind the resources, or lack thereof.

I wonder where we would have been today if it had been decided that it was logistically impossible to feed the entire population.
You dont understand the populist vote bank appeasement that is happening behind this bill.
It calls for 25% free seats for people from the neighbourhood and also from the weaker sections, and the government will pay up to 25% of the fees of a Government School. Now understand this, This is when Government Schools are running empty, still cost us tax payers, Its because government doesnt have the guts to face up to Government Teachers and Employee's union in every state, who as all of you know dont work for anything and still earns more than double of a private school teacher(dont compare metro's,Del-Bang-Mad-Mumbai), Government Schools are closing down here because of lack of students, and now the governments want them to enter private schools? Think about it! Kerala Government is not giving NOC's to new CBSE/ICSE Schools since Government Schools are closing down, even though parents want CBSE/ICSE schools they are forcing them to select Government Schools, and still not doing anything about Teaching Quality or Infrastructure.

And also, Most Private Insitution are by small charitable association,mostly Hindu's unlike their Christian and Muslim counterparts they dont get any FOREIGN money, nor do Hindu's donate that much to institutions other than some temples. So if the Government makes 25% seats compulsory where will all these Hindu institutions get the money from? They will be forced to close. So either they have to construct more which cost money to get more students but that also has corresponding increase in 25%, or increase fees; People might pay higher in Metro's they wont in non-metro's.
Most of you over here are from Metro's, and there is a problem with the educational set up over there, but that is not the same with the rest of India. . People who will suffer most in this endevour would be the Hindu's in non-metro Tier-2 cities and rural India, more case for Hindu's to convert I suppose. Pathetic.
 

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