New Delhi, December 16
A fundamental Right to Education has been written into the Constitution, it was announced today. It is intended to benefit India’s 190 million 6 to 14-year-olds, especially some 35 million currently not attending school.
President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam gave his assent to the Constitutional (93rd Amendment) Bill, 2002 now notified in the gazette as the Constitution (86th Amendment) Act, 2002, it was officially stated. The law makes education for 6 to 14-year-olds a Fundamental Right within the meaning of Chapter III of the Constitution, an official statement said.
It said Article 21 providing for Fundamental Right to Life and Personal Liberty stood amended to make education up to high school a Fundamental Right for all citizens of India.
The amendment will be enforced from a date to be notified by the Department of Education in the Ministry of Human Resource Development, it said.
State governments and Union Territory Administrations will thereafter make arrangements for compulsory education for children across India to herald the nation’s march to cent per cent literacy.
Laws are also on the anvil to operationalise the new Fundamental Right, Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi told journalists a day after the Lok Sabha adopted the Bill late last month.
The amendment process was delayed by a technicality. The Lok Sabha first passed the Bill on November 28, 2001, but by the time the Rajya Sabha passed it in May 2002, the Bill had been amended in terms of the year, requiring the Lok Sabha to approve it one more time.
Stressing that educational empowerment was the way to economic empowerment, Dr Joshi called the measure the “dawn of the second revolution in the Chapter of Citizens’ rights.”
Dr Joshi estimated that although more than 150 million children in that age group attend school, some 35 million or so are either never enrolled or dropout.
Asked if the government intended to punish the economically weak parents who are unable to send children to schools, Dr Joshi said the emphasis would be to “encourage” and “prompt” parents to bring children to schools.
The government is trying to target such children through a Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and a series of measures and facilities — such as free mid-day meals, uniforms and textbooks, Dr Joshi said.
He said steps were being taken to provide mobile schools to help students who are never long enough at one address — construction workers’ children, for instance — or giving examination on demand to kids unable to meet regular schedules.
The minister told a questioner that agencies such as the World Bank could participate in its programmes provided there were no conditionalities.
Dr Joshi said a monitoring system would be put in place to ensure proper implementation of the provisions in terms of not just the funds spent, but the content of the implementation.
UNI
