Right to Education may go wrong way in feel BJP

After the applause, the reality check. The Manmohan Singh government is now faced with questions about implementation of the Right to

Education Act with opposition parties expressing apprehensions about infrastructure and funds required to execute the target envisaged in the law.

The CPM, which has complained about lack of financial wherewithal for states to implement the Right to Education Act, wants the central government to create conditions to enable children to go to school. “It’s a positive step. Legally it gives the right to education for children. But there are around five crore children below the age of 14 working in India because of their family’s poverty-stricken conditions,” CPM politburo member and CITU leader M K Pandhe said on Friday.

This means, the government should address the problem of child labour in the country. Mr Pandhe said unless these children are provided books, meals and clothes they will not be in a position to attend school.

Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has already written to human resource development minister Kapil Sibal expressing his reservations about provisions of the right to education law. The state government’s lament is that under the law, the entire onus is on it. The state government will be answerable if it failed to provide free and quality education to all students, while the Centre will not be responsible for providing funds for its implementation.

State education minister Partha Dey was quoted by PTI as saying in Kolkata that the government did not enjoy sufficient control over private schools to force them to reserve quota of seats as laid down. “We are, however, committed to implementing the positive provisions of the statute,” he said.

The BJP-led Madhya Pradesh government has said that it would be difficult to implement the law. The state's education minister Archana Chitnis said the state did not have the infrastructure to implement the RTE Act.

However, the Human Resource Devaelopment ministry is refuting the states’ argument that the Centre needs to share responsibility. According to the ministry, education was a state subject and states were “flushed” with funds. The Finance Commission has given Rs 25,000 crore for all states for five years for RTE.

Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Left-BJP-feel-Right-to-Education-may-go-wrong-way/articleshow/5756183.cms