In a recent petition before the Delhi High Court, specific provisions of the Right to Education Act, 2009 is being challenged on the ground they are “arbitrary and irrational” and seeking a standard syllabus and curriculum for students of classes 1 to 8 across the country, including for madrasas and Vedic pathshalas. The court has asked for the response of the following authorities-Delhi government, CBSE and NHRC.
India is a country where the entire focus at the family and at an individual level is on education, but on the world level, we are still 116th in World Education Ranking. The Indian Constitution also has provisions to ensure that the State provides education to all its citizens—the original enactment defined education as a state subject. An amendment was added in the year 1976, and education became a concurrent subject, with both Centre and State having a say on laws regarding it.
In 2010, the Country achieved a historic milestone when Article 21-A and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009 became operative on April 1 2010, a momentous step towards universalizing elementary education. The Constitution (86th) Amendment Act has now inserted Article 21A in the Constitution, which makes teaching a Fundamental Right for Children aged 6- 14 years. Under the new law, the State shall endeavour to provide compulsory free education to all children of the age group.
The new Act provides that no school can deny admission to any student, and all schools need trained teachers. The schools are required to have certain minimum facilities like adequate teachers, playgrounds, and infrastructure. The state government and local authorities will establish primary schools within walking distance of one km of the neighborhood. For children in Class VI to VIII, the school should be within walking distance of three km of the area.
The Right to Education Act, 2009 is the first Central legislation on school education applicable all over India (except Jammu and Kashmir). After the abolition of Article 370 in August 2019, the RTE Act also became helpful in J&K.
Law under Challenge
The PIL said the existence of sections 1(4) and 1(5) of the RTE Act and the absence of a common curriculum in the mother tongue leads to the perpetuation of ignorance and delays the attainment of fundamental duties.
Section 1(4) of the RTE Act states that subject to the provisions of articles 29 and 30 of the Constitution, the provisions of this Act shall apply to conferment of rights on children to free and compulsory education.
Section 1(5) of the Act says nothing contained in this Act shall apply to Madrasas, Vedic Pathshalas and educational institutions primarily imparting religious instruction. The plea said the prevailing system discriminates and does not provide for equal opportunity to all children as the syllabus and curriculum vary for each strata of the society.
Status of the Case
A bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramaniam Prasad issued notices to the newly impleaded parties – Delhi government, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). Besides, the bench also issued notices to National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations on the petition and asked the parties to file their replies. The court listed the matter for further hearing on August 16. The high court had earlier issued notices to the Union ministries of Education, Law and Justice and Home Affairs on the petition and asked them to respond.
Petitioner’s Plea
Petitioner advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay was quoted in various newspapers stating that the Union must effectuate a standard education system. Still, it must fulfil this obligation as it has simply adopted the pre-existing National Curriculum Framework (NCF) of 2005, which is very old.
“Right of a child should not be restricted only to free education but must be extended to have equal quality education without discrimination on the ground of child’s social economic and cultural background. Therefore, the court may declare Sections 1(4) and 1(5) arbitrary, irrational, and violative of Articles 14, 15, 16 and 21 and direct the Centre to implement common syllabus and common curriculum for the students of I-VIII standard throughout the country,” the plea said.
The petition said a common minimum education programme for the children up to 14 years will achieve the code of common culture, removal of disparity and depletion of discriminatory values in human relations. India is signatory to several international covenants which is binding on its commitment for making education a reality for all children.
Previous petitions
The Supreme Court had earlier refused to entertain a PIL against certain sections of the Right to Education Act-2009 for being “arbitrary and irrational” and seeking introduction of a common syllabus and curriculum for children across the country. A bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and B R Gavai asked the petitioner advocate Ashwini Upadhyay to approach the high court in this regard. The matter was dismissed as withdrawn. The bench clarified that it was not expressing any opinion on merits of the case.
In 2012, on April 12, the Supreme Court pronounced its judgement in the Unaided Private Schools of Rajasthan v Union of India case and declared that “unaided minority educational institutions” are outside of the purview of the RTE Act. This however meant that the RTE Act was applicable to aided minority institutions. The thinking in the political circles, based on the interpretation of the judgement was that the hierarchical order of Article 29/30 and the RTE Act was not clear (my assessment of the understanding). However, immediately after that above referred judgement, the UPA Government added an amendment clause and inserted Section 1(4) into the Act. The clause says the following.
(4) Subject to the provisions of articles 29 and 30 of the Constitution, the provisions of this Act shall apply to conferment of rights on children to free and compulsory education
(5) Nothing contained in this Act shall apply to Madras as, Vedic Pathsalas and educational institutions primarily imparting religious instruction.]
Now, under this amendment, even in aided institutions, the school management committees will not be governing the minority institutions. They will only have an advisory function. Therefore, we have made a departure. Whereas under the Supreme Court judgment, aided institutions will be governed by school management institution by virtue of this amendment, we have said that aided institutions will not be covered. They will have only an advisory capacity.
Case study
During ancient education, [Indian Education: Ancient, Medieval and Modern Written by Mangesh M. Ghonge, Rohit Bag and Aniket Singh] students live away from their parents, their education comprises of subjects like physical education, mental education, politics, economics, etc. They were shaped in a way that they can live in any condition considering how difficult the situation will be? Medieval education also followed the same protocol as ancient education in spite that their education mostly focuses on religion. India is on 116th rank viz its education system and Germany is leading. What makes it different in Germany.
The German schooling system is divided into 5 levels:
- Early Childhood Education.
- Primary Education.
- Secondary Education.
- Tertiary Education.
- Continuing Education.
Full-time schooling is compulsory at primary and secondary levels for all children aged six to 15. However, German education generally lasts until the age of 18 years. Both nurseries and pre-schools are optional. On the other hand, India’s National Policy for Early Childhood Education seeks to create a universal pre-primary system. Pre-primary education refers to education that begins at the age of five years. Under this system, all children are entitled to five years of free preschool education. In 2016, the central government announced a new policy to expand preschools and make pre-primary education compulsory.
Primary schools in Germany are generally split into:
- Religious schools – these offer the same curriculum as state schools and are mostly state-subsidized, so are cheaper than fully private options.
- International and bilingual schools – these are fully private schools that typically offer bilingual education and run their own curriculum. They are among the most expensive schools but tend to be of high standard.
- Waldorf schools– state-subsidized alternative schools that offer teaching based on the Rudolf Steiner method.
- Montessori schools – alternative schools that employ the hands-on development-led Montessori method of education.
The core objective of the German primary education is development of essential understanding, skills, abilities, and key competences amongst pupils. Subjects taught in German primary schools are German language, mathematics, general studies, foreign language, art, handicrafts/textile design, music, sports, and religion/ethics. They also teach intercultural, mint, media, health, musical-aesthetic, sustainable development, and values education.
The Federal Ministries of Education, Cultural Affair and Science is the main authority for making education, science, and arts policy guidelines, and for adopting related laws and administrative regulations. Primary school textbooks in Germany, used as study reference, must be approved the respective Ministry. All Germans are obliged to attend primary and secondary education, ever since they reach the age of 6, up until they complete a 9-year full-time schooling at Gymnasium, or 10 years of full-time years for other general education schools. Disabled youngsters have an obligation to complete compulsory education too. In dependence to their special education needs they will attend either a normal school or a special school. People suffering long-term or permanent illness or physical incapacity who couldn’t attend primary education lessons they may well receive such education at their homes. Germany has also vocationally oriented primary education modules.
The two principles of German Education
- Maria Montessori discovered evolved type of classrooms that led to a deeper understanding of language, mathematics, science, music, social interactions and much more. Most Montessori classrooms are secular in nature, although the Montessori educational method can be integrated successfully into a faith-based program.
Steiner Waldorf education draws on the ideas of the early 20th Century philosopher whose philosophy to educate children in a way that enables them to become their true selves, to be good citizens and to contribute to society and be a strong force for good in the world. He recommended that to enable this it was important take account of the age and stage of development of each child in deciding what and how to teach them.These ideas, developed 100 years ago, largely correspond to the understanding of child development today.
The efficacy of every law should be periodically reviewed in terms of challenges and litigations under it and the new developments. The present law has been challenged twice on the present issue of the equality of education however not so far, a serious discussion from the scientific perspective for proper growth of the children has been done. As German system underlines the principles of imparting education an important criterion to build the over personality of the child. The idea of education should be how we can empower the children and grow in our society more constructively. Even the ancient India has its own system focusing on growth of the child however we had limited scope of study about it in this article. Another important highlight is the Right to Education Act, 2009 that has no provision to take education to children with disabilities, children with special needs (CWSN) who form the largest out-of-school group in India. The land where ancient landmark literatures were authored, India was 135th Country to make right to education a fundamental right and yet the Act is open to challenge on the fundamental issue of equality.
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