The enactment of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009 has completed a decade. However, the implementation of the legislation in these years in the State as well as at all India level is pathetic. The compliance rate to the RTE Act specific reference to ten parameters in 2016-17 was only 12.7 per cent at all India level and at Odisha it was only 6.6 per cent.
The rate of compliance indicates that the Government didn’t prioritize RTE in letter and spirit. Marginal priority to implement the Act only encouraged private providers to enter into education sector.
No standards have been fixed by CBSC, ICSE and the Government to make the private schools obligatory and regulated. Hundreds of small private schools have been operating without any NOC from the Government. Affiliated schools are also violating judgments, policies and guidelines of the State Government.
Keeping this in mind the All India Parents Association (AIPA) Odisha branch and district-level associations organised a consultation on Regulation of Private Schools here on October 29 and 30. Members associations of Puri, Sundargada, Khurda, Jagatsinghpur, Ganjam and Cuttack attended the meeting. A charter of demands was drafted on the occasion.
The AIPA has demanded that the Government bring a policy on regulation of private school and other private providers such as companies, corporates, entrepreneurs, philanthropies and other voucher schools/coaching centers. Parents , civil society oganisations and children should be involved. The regulation policy should be created with budgetary provisions and should provide legal assistance to the victims of private school.
There should be redressal mechanism under which the State Government should intervene with school authorities for consideration of parents’ complaints.
The Government should introduce an audit system to disallow profiteering attitude of private schools. The auditing should be introduced on financial, cultural and governance aspects.
There should be Government-managed centralised structure for admission of SEBC children in private schools under 12.1 ( c ). The provision should also be made available to parents of single girl child.
Decent living wages should be given to schools’ teaching and nonteaching staff of private school. Professional development training should be provided to teachers.
The Government should not encourage private school to extract arbitrary charges from parents for admission, tuition fees and for other allied education support cost. Decision on fees norms should be decided by a dedicated committee represented by parents, CSOs and children. Collection of admission fees each year should be abolished for which the Government should issue a circular to private school.
The State Government should enforce adoption of a State curriculum in all private managed schools. There should be a school management committee (SMC) in all private schools to monitor implementations RTE Act norms.
Among others, AIPA State president Pradipta Nayak, general secretary Surendra Das, Prof Amiya Mohanty, Prof Surendra Kumar Jena, Akshya Kumar Biswal and Santosh Patra spoke.