RTE vs APARTHEID MIND SET

We had anticipated that with the Government enacting a law on the Right to Education, implementation of the Right to Education enshrined in the Constitution will get implemented. When the enactment came, of course, we were disappointed that it did not fulfill the ‘free and compulsory education for all children from the age of 6 to 14’.  It attempted only to cover 25% from the economically weak. (Pl see our views in earlier pages on this)  The mechanism that would determine the economic weakness also was subject to various doubts.  Yet, since the journey of even a thousand miles has to start only with the first step, this was looked upon by us as a welcome move.

But the private school managements saw red.  They said that the RTE cannot be implemented.  If it is implemented, the fee paying parents will have to take the burden of the free education also, they threatened.  This argument itself raises several questions.  Chiefly, when these educational institutions are registered as Trusts for charitable/educational purposes, when they profess that they are in the field of education as a ‘service’ to the society, should not they themselves have adopted some mechanism whereby some children in each institution gets free education?  Though they themselves failed to do so, at least when the Parliament enacted a law requiring them do so, they were expected to do so ‘graciously’.

The managements wanted to exercise their legal right and went to court on the issue.  Of late, we have seen that on various legislations, the school managements have been going to the Courts at the cost of, of course the money collected from the parents.  Whether in the case against fixation of fees or implementation of Uniform Syllabus, in Tamil Nadu, they failed before the highest judicial forum of the land.  In the case of RTE also therefore there was little wonder that they went to court.

But when the Hon’ble Supreme Court, in a judgment written by the Chief Justice himself upheld the RTE and directed the schools to start following it from this year itself (2012-13) the school managements were expected to take things seriously and start the process of admissions as per the RTE Act and the instructions of the Government in this regard.

But, we hear from media reports that the managements are yet to get satisfied.  They want to exercise their right of going for a review.  This, in our opinion, taking into consideration the bahaviour of the managements in the previous cases, can be seen only as an attempt to postpone the implementation of the scheme from this year itself.  In the first place, they should not have filled up the vacancies before the verdict was out.  Any admission without adhering to the provisions of the RTE, when there was no stay by any Court against its provisions is itself failure to abide by the law.  Hence, we hope that now the Government at the Center and at the State will issue strict instructions that the provisions have to be implemented immediately, in the absence of any stay.

No quarrels over the managements using their right, though as pointed earlier, it is at the expense of the hard earned money collected from the parents, but what is disturbing is their attitude and posers.

Their repeated argument that when there is a government school in the vicinity, the children under RTE cannot be admitted into private schools, is like saying that certain people shall not board a private bus if government busses are plying in the same route.  This attitude is nothing else but open and defiant proclamation of an attitude of ‘apartheid’.  This attitude will also threaten the society from discrimination of these children within the campus. 

When these institutions came and sought the recognition of the government for running schools in the name of assisting the government/society in the field of imparting of education, now to talk as if they are a parallel government, and dodging implementation of an enactment even after the apex court has held it up, is nothing short of exhibition of defiance, rebellion and greed.

We are reminded of the poem of Rabindranath Tagore in the ‘Gitanjali’:

When it was day they came into my house and said, `We shall only take the smallest room here.' 

They said, `We shall help you in the worship of your God and humbly accept only our own share in his grace'; and then they took their seat in a corner and they sat quiet and meek. 

But in the darkness of night I find they break into my sacred shrine, strong and turbulent, and snatch with unholy greed the offerings from God's altar.

High time, the real owner of the house wakes up. 

One small step in that direction will be to bring into these Trusts into the ambit of the Right to Information Act, because, it is public money which is being used against public interest.