3 years later, state edu dept to raise awareness on RTE Act

Right to Education Act entails that:
A school up to class V should be within 1 km of its students. This distance increases to 3 km for students of schools that teach upto class eight.

Ideal student-teacher ratio is 30:1 in lower primary section, and 35:1 in upper primary section.

If a school has more than 100 students, it requires one principal. If number of students in a school exceeds 105, there should be three part-time teachers for language, sciences, physical and vocational training, drawing-music, etc.

While these are few of the basic criteria of RTE that schools must follow, NGOs in the education sphere believe that there are several institutes which are not adhering to these practices in their premises.

Officials in state education department accepted that there are a few schools that are not toeing the RTE line. Officials will soon start an awareness drive to make schools aware of guidelines in this Act.

“Despite three years into implementation of RTE, a few government schools still lack knowledge of the Act. Officials of state government must check teacher-student ratio, distance and other parameters in the act," said an NGO activist working in the field of education. No interviews with students and parents for admissions rule is also being flouted, he added.

RP Gupta, principal secretary of Guj primary education, believes that government schools hold the key to improvement in quality of state’s education. "We understand the need to publicise RTE and there are several schools that do not have much exposure to it. We soon will launch an awareness drive for teachers, parents and students to educate them in the Act. Seminars and interactive sessions will be part of this programme," said Gupta. "Once awareness programmes are over, we will conduct surprise checks at schools to ensure level of implementation," he added.