Shiksha Samwad Samagam 2011

With the enforcement of Right To Free & Compulsory Education Act (RTE) on 27 August, 2009 a new chapter in the field of education marked its presence. Now education has become a fundamental right for all children & it’s the responsibility of the state to ensure education of each child falling in the age group of 6-14 yrs. The act was enacted at state level right from  1 April, 2010. 

      As RTE Act has successfully completed 1 yr. since its implementation  & in order to ascertain current progress  a Study has been conducted. In order to initiate the process some like minded organizations in Bhopal working preferably in Education sector came together to organize Shiksha Samwad Samagam 2011 a state level workshop to have an analysis on RTE Act 2009 since 1 yr. after implementation  on 19 April 2011 at National Institute of Technical Teachers Training & Research (NITTTR), Bhopal by BGVS, NIWCYD-Bachpan, Aarambh, Muskan & Eklavya assess the status of schools prevailing in their project area. As an instance a study was conducted in 7 districts of M.P. Viz. Bhopal, Jabalpur, Guna, Sehore, Shivpuri, Morena & Dewas constituting 11 blocks & 48 wards. 83 school were covered that include 56 primary & 27 middle schools. A total of 14892 children were enrolled in these schools out of which 7088 were boys & 7804 were girls with total staff of 83. Major reflections found during the study include both positive & negative impact. One of the major Positive impact was the ratio of girl child enrollment was high as compared to boys that itself depict a good sign that girl child education is being promoted. Parents are looking forward to educate girls & opportunities for them are increasing. Some of the negative impact were 44% parents are not aware of 25% reservation for economically backward class children in private schools. 26% PTA members were unaware  of RTE Act 2009 & 37% children were not given admission in schools as per age criteria. Gaps, challenges & suggestions were also identified that is hindering the progress of implementation of RTE Act. All these statistics & suggestions were presented before the distinguished panelist constituting Ms. Kiran Bhatti (Commissioner RTE Wing NCPCR, New Delhi), Prof. Dr. Uday Jain, Mr. Tiwari (Representative from RSK), Ms. Anjali Noronha (Eklavya), Ms. Umashree & Mr. Christopher (UNICEF, Bhopal). Field  level experiences were also shared before the panel & Ms. Kiran Bhatti suggested to send the cases of violation of RTE Act both to NCPCR & SCPCR so that adequate action could be taken. She also commended that Govt has bounded the time of 3 yrs. to full fledgedly implement the Act so it is not the right time to make any kind of evaluation but still we have to push Govt timely o that the process could be completed within the set time period of 3 Yrs. At the end of the  workshop some of the major reflections of the program based on field experience were chalked down in brief as recommendations that will be shared with Education Dept. & Ministry of Human Resource Development to attain concrete achievements in the field of Education.