12 November,2010 08:34 AM IST | | Abhishek Anand
Government institutions allow students to leave for the most bizarre reasons, rendering Right to Education ineffective
Teacher opens register, calls out for roll number 1. "Present sir," pat comes the reply. Same for roll number 2. So far so good. But then things take a different turn. For every 4 to 5 students present, one is absent. So where are they? We see them too, working at a butcher shop, another washing dishes, so on and so forth.
Bricks and mortar: A government school at Palam village in New Delhi.
PIC/Rajeev Tyagi
This TV advertisement is part of the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyaan, a project on which the government of India spends crores of rupees every day as together with the UNICEF, it attempts to eradicate illiteracy in the country. The intentions are noble for sure. But is it all in vain? Sample this: activist Manish Bhatnagar filed an RTI plea asking about the details of school dropouts in the year 2009-10 for Delhi government schools.
The reply was startling."I was shocked reading the documents in which the schools granted School Leaving Certificate (SLC) to students for child marriage and even child labour. The Divisional officers of the education department didn't have any details. The schools have provided the documents," said Manish.
The RTI reply says hundreds of students of various government schools of Delhi were allowed to drop out because of reasons like long absence and non-payment of dues. Incidentally a government school student is expected to pay 15 rupees every three months as tuition fee.
"Are the officers blind that they even can't see how flimsy these reasons are? A due of 15 rupees and long absence is not valid reason to kick any child out of school. This is the duty of the government to ensure that every poor child receives education," Manish added.
"If it's true then this is an extremely serious matter. The government must step in. Often when we rescue children who are being exploited as labourers we discover that they are school dropouts. If problems like this exist in the system, NGOs will not be able to tackle it," said Baljeet Singh from the NGO Aarambh.
| Cases in point |
| Some institutions have granted school leaving certificates to students even for child labour. The UK Rajakiya Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya, Daryapur Kalan, Delhi replied that the school administration granted SLC to a student named Kanchan of class 5 and mentioned that the family that worked as labourers shifted to Bihar. The same school replied that the administration has granted school leaving certificate to a student named Sonam of 10th standard because she was about to get married. |
