The Right to Education Bill, which aims to ensure that all children upto to the age of 14 receive quality education atleast upto the secondary level, comparable to that of Kendriya Vidyalayas under the CBSE pattern and ensure that they don’t drop out. [Source Times of India dtd 21-04-08]. The Literacy rate in India according to 2001 Census stands at 64.84 percent. [Source:- Wikipedia the free encyclopedia].
Parliament has passed the Constitution 86th Amendment Act, 2002, to make elementary education a Fundamental Right for children in the age group of 6-14 years and has also introduced a 2 percent educational cess on all direct and indirect central taxes through the Finance (No. 2) Act, 2004. [Source:- Wikipedia the free encyclopedia].
Challenges Faced
There are many challenges faced in achieving the target.
- Poverty:- People who live under extreme poverty, consider their children to be money earners for their family. So they are made to work at a considerable young age [Child labour]. And so education takes a back seat.
- Lack of Infrastructure:-Lack of proper infrastructures in rural villages where children have to walk miles before reaching school also deters them from attending.
- Lack of Incentives:-This is another major factor contributing to drop outs from school. Since most of these children come from poor families, there should be some sort of incentives that allow these students to continue studies, without dropping out.
- Lack of Awareness
arents should be made aware about the importance of proper education for children and the need to educate them.
Steps taken to Address the Problem
Government has taken several measures to address the issue of dropouts from schools.
- The Midday Meal Scheme:- (Source:-Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia):- It involves provision of lunch free of cost to school-children on all working days. The key objectives of the programme are:
- protecting children from classroom hunger
- increasing school enrolment and attendance
- improved socialisation among children belonging to all castes
- addressing malnutrition and social empowerment through provision of employment to women
The scheme has a long history especially in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, and has been expanded to all parts of India after a landmark direction by the Supreme Court of India on November 28, 2001. The success of this scheme is illustrated by the tremendous increase in the school participation and completion rates in the state of Tamilnadu.
- Monetary Incentives:- (Source:- The Mumbai Mirror dtd 24th April, 2008) The BMC (Municipal Body of Mumbai) introduced this scheme of giving one rupee daily to every girl child enrolled in its school. This scheme is in addition to the regular scheme of midday meal and school bags to students. The scheme seems to have its effect as the enrolment has risen.
There are various schemes as above aimed at raising the standards of education and making it within reach of common and poor. But to ensure that they are successful, government needs to ensure that all the schemes are implemented properly and all involved are made accountable
Filed under: Education for All - A dream or a Reality , education bill 2005, education in india, midday meal scheme
Education is the best tool to unlock the vicious and self-perpetuating cycle of hunger and poverty. By providing school meals for the underprivileged children we have to promote and encourage education among them.
As you will understand, this is a tremendous task and I know one NGO in India which is doing almost similar work. I think they are feeding almost 1 million underprivileged children everyday, through out the country.
I think we all have to support them for the work they are doing for those who are in need.If you want to know more about them log on to http://www.akshayapatra.org.
Support them its our social Responsibility.
Pradeep,
25% people in India are BPL in India and the definition of BPL is quite ridiculous in India. “The official estimates of the poverty line are based on a norm of 2400 calories per capita per day for rural areas and 2100 per capita per day for urban areas.” This goes back to the 1970s; at that time, we decided to measure poverty levels by considering a minimum nutritional level. More accurately, the measure was the amount of money required to buy food equivalent to this nutritional level. If you earned more than this amount, you were above the poverty line. Now this is a JOKE. We need to change the definitions before we can actually dream of actualizing our grand dream of Education for all.