While the state education department is trying to bring the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE) in to implementation on paper, the ground reality could be quite depressing.
While the state education department is trying to bring the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE) in to implementation on paper, the ground reality could be quite depressing. The state has failed to disburse the non-salary grants to schools since 2004. The grants are meant for academic-related developments in schools.
According to a principal from an aided school in Byculla, the non-salary grants come to 6% of the salary grants given to school. The department asks schools to make use of the funds for several purposes including administrative work. “We are asked to use 70% of the grants for academic work and 30% for administrative work. For a school to function every day, the management requires the non-salary grants. For schools which are run by a good management it is easy to allocate funds, but schools with poor management are unable to function properly due to lack of funds,” said the principal. The funds are also used for new teaching aids for students to comprehend faster.
“It is expensive for schools to maintain a certain infrastructure, follow the teacher-student ratio prescribed by the RTE. Since the government has stopped issuing non teaching grants for schools since 2004, and schools can no longer collect additional fees under the anti capitation act. Fees are their only income generation, but parents oppose fee hikes, so schools are facing difficulty in implementing RTE,” said Basanti Roy, former board secretary.
Due to the crunch in funds, many schools are having a tough time adhering to the RTE norms. For Instance, Though RTE mandates all schools to have drinking water facilities, there is no drinking water in 31% of schools in the state, 45% of schools in the state do not have usable toilets, whereas, 55.8% of schools do not have separate toilet for girls. Norms regarding playgrounds and boundary walls are not observed.
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