A thematic review on right to education and its implementation: Finding space

Abstract

Effort has been made in this paper to make a sketch on right to education and its implementation based on related review of literature. It has been found that right of children to free and compulsory education act (RTE) was passed by the Indian Parliament in 2009 mandates free and compulsory education of all children of 6-14 years age until they complete elementary education in a neighbourhood school. However, it has been reported that only 5% of the schools were following RTE guidelines as stated by the convener of RTE Forum. Additionally, there were problems, such as shortage of teachers, untrained teachers in some places, Para-teachers and student-teacher ratio and there is also problem of school drop-outs. Student dropout problem is however, faced by all developed and developing countries of the world. It is common knowledge that financial constraints or domestic chores are the main reasons cited by people for dropping out of education. The National Sample Survey shows that 13 out of every 100 Indians between 5-29 years did not attend school or dropped out because they did not consider education as necessary. It has been also reported that overall females receive less education than males and they tend to dropout and withdrawn earlier for both economic and social-culture reasons. Based on the relevant results, it has been indicated that large categorization of children with special education need might be, in some cases, a viable way for teachers to justify under achievement, and thus act as a rationale for these children to dropout.