The Hans India: New Delhi: Tuesday,
October 18, 2016.
Education
holds the key to economic growth, social transformation, modernisational
integration. Though the Constitution mandated compulsory and free education to
all children in 10 years from 1950, governments ignored it. By the time the
state woke up to the requirement, the public education declined due to
corruption, disinclination to keep up quality of teaching and inaction.
This gave a
lot of space to mushrooming of private educational institutions. Now the country
is facing commercial shops of teaching where teachers are paid less and
students are paying more.
The tragedy
is that government teachers are better qualified, trained and paid as per law
while the private teachers are neither qualified nor trained nor paid fully,
but the education in private schools is considered better, though not the best.
The
governments failed to effectively manage the schools though having better
infrastructure and gradually gave up maintenance of school buildings and
filling vacancies. The post-Independence rulers did great injustice to the new
generations by ignoring the duty to educate them.
They went on
pumping huge money on higher education but did not nationalise or rationalise
the school education. During these days of liberalisation, the governments are
starving the universities and contemplating compulsory primary education. With
the 2009 law of Right to Education, the private schools are being paid for
filling their 25 per cent seats with disadvantaged group of students.
As the
education regulatory is not effective and honest in states, scandals are
generated in payments to private schools and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyans and other
programmes. The welfare schemes like mid-day meals to encourage enrollment in
rural schools have succeeded, but they facilitated wide-spread petty
corruption.
Lack of
maintenance and care led to collapse of school buildings and thousands of
schools are without toilets, a factor that dissuade girl students from going to
schools. It’s a tragedy that states’ apathy to add toilets in schools emerged a
major cause of denial of education to girl child leading to serious gender gap
for generations together.
With private
schools dominating the field of private primary education, emergence of concept
schools, air-conditioned buildings and ‘public’ schools in corporate model, the
role of government as educator has decreased and need for effective regulation
by state increased.
Present
regulation of primary education by state is weak against the mighty private
teaching super bazars and five-star schools. The schools which enjoyed prime
state lands in cities breached the promise of teaching backward classes and
state did nothing to enforce those conditions. The failure of regulation is
common in private hospitals and schools. Parents should come together to
challenge the strong private schools and strengthen weak state regulation.
One of the
major tools available for the parents is Right to Information, as available
under RTI Act, 2005 which can be effectively used to secure Right to Education
as provided under Act of 2009 and also to secure better services from private
schools through regulatory mechanism available with state, CBSE or other
affiliating bodies.
Parents have
a right and duty to fight for proper, fair education at reasonable amounts of
fee from private educational institutions, which need to be strictly regulated
by the Department of Education of state government.
The RTI can
also be used to secure the information about government schools under S 3, and
also private schools as can be accessed through the Department of Education, as
per Section 2(f) of RTI Act, which says: "information" means any
material in any form, including records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions,
advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports,
papers, samples, models, data material held in any electronic form and
information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a public
authority under any other law for the time being in force”
Every private
school has a duty to give information under the RTI Act, about admissions and
education being provided to 25 per cent of students belonging to
disadvantageous groups as prescribed under the RTE Act.
They cannot
escape saying they are neither public authorities nor NGOs/ institutions aided
or substantially funded by the government because they are being reimbursed by
the state for educating 25 per cent of students under the RTE Act. The private
schools or so-called public schools in private are also liable to inform under
the RTI Act through the regulatory i.e., department of Education, as per
Section 2(f) of the RTI Act.
Parents’
rights as consumers
Providing
education is a service under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, Section 2(d)
defines: "consumer" means any person who—(i)… (ii) hires or avails of
any services for a consideration which has been paid or promised or partly paid
and partly prom-ised, or ….” Deficiency
in service is explained by Consumer Protection Act, Section 2(g) "deficiency"
means any fault, imperfection, shortcoming or inadequacy in the quality, nature
and manner of performance which is required to be maintained by or under any
law for the time being in force or has been undertaken to be performed by a
person in pursuance of a contract or otherwise in relation to any service;
Every
consumer can file a complaint before the forum demanding compensation for any
deficiency in service. Section 2 (c) says: "complaint" means any
allegation in writing made by a complain-ant that,
i.
an unfair trade practice or a restrictive trade practice
has been adopted by any trader or service provider;
ii.
the goods bought by him or agreed to be bought by him;
suffer from one or more defects;
iii.
the services hired or availed of or agreed to be hired or
availed of by him suffer from deficiency in any respect;
Consumers of
educational services are children. Because the children are minors, the parents
in their capacity as natural guardians can agitate their rights before Consumer
forum. Rights of consumers are provided
specifically under Section 6 as objectives of Central Council. Section 6 of CP
Act the objects of the Central Council shall be to promote and protect the rights
of the consumers such as,
a)
the right to be protected against the marketing of goods
and services which are hazardous to life and property;
b)
the right to be informed about the quality, quantity,
potency, purity, standard and price of goods or services, as the case may be so
as to protect the consumer against unfair trade practices;
c)
the right to be assured, wherever possible, access to a
variety of goods and services at competitive prices;
d)
the right to be heard and to be assured that consumer's
interests will receive due consideration at appropriate forums;
e)
the right to seek redressal against unfair trade
practices or restrictive trade practices or unscrupulous exploitation of consumers;
and
f)
the right to consumer education.
Student’s
Rights Charter
1.
Each school or society managing a school has a duty to
provide for ‘Student’s/Parents’ charter’ with necessary timelines. Procedures to file complaints shall be
explained.
2.
The schemes, scholarships, facilities available at the
school shall be announced in their official website in the form of FAQs under
their duty to voluntarily disclose as per Section 4(1)(b) of Right to
Information Act.
3.
The parents and teachers should be given a substantive
role in fixation of fee and other charges and in implementation of welfare
schemes and scholarships.
4.
Parents have a right to monitor the quality of teaching
and management systems in the schools- private or government.
5.
Parents have a right to participate in policy making
exercise by the state regarding regulation of private schools.
6. Every school should have an internal mechanism and also
subject to such mechanism by an independent body to resolve the complaints/grievances
of parents and students against the teachers and also the complaints by the
teachers or other employees of those schools.
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