A thorough review of Right to Education (RTE) Act 2009 should be undertaken as it has failed to achieve its intended aim of improving the level of education quality and a uniform system of education should be implemented in the country to usher in a big change in quality of education in the schools of the country, said the Uttarakhand Education Minister, Mantri Prasad Naithani while addressing a meeting of sub committee of Central Advisory Board on Education (CBAE) in New Delhi on Wednesday.
He said that RTE mandates 25 percent of seats in the private schools should be reserved for poor students and the State Government has to spend a large amount of money to compensate private schools for these admissions. Naithani claimed that this provision of RTE has failed to bring in
requisite results. He requested the Union Government to release pending amount of `91 crore to the Uttarakhand Government in this head.
The education minister told the gathering that there are many chinks in ‘No Detention Policy’ which mandates that no student should be failed till Class VIII and it should be immediately revoked to bring increment in quality of education being imparted. He suggested that a separate commission for selection of teachers should be constituted and the age for admission in pre primary classes should be kept at three.
Nainthani advocated for classes of yoga and physical education in the primary schools and increase in remuneration of Anganwadi workers. He said that only an amount of `25,268.97 lakh is released against an annual of budget of `60,826.26 lakhs by the Union Government under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). The Minister also highlighted the achievements of education department of Uttarakhand in his address.
The meeting was chaired by Minister of State, MHRD, Mahendra Nath Pandey. The education ministers of Uttarakhand, Gujarat and Madya Pradesh took part in the meeting.