Educationists and legal experts allege that Tamil Nadu Government is blatantly violating the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009. This Act has made it compulsory for all schools in the State to provide free elementary education to every child in the 6 to 14 age group.
“The Tamil Nadu State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (TNSCPCR) has received 131 complaints in the last nine months from parents of children whose schools have not adhered to rules of the RTE Act 2009. Hundreds of poor children have been expelled from the private schools in the State during this period,” said M Ravinson, lawyer and president of Kumari Maha Sabha in Kanyakumari, which is in the forefront fighting for the causes of poor children in the State.
He pointed out that the chairperson, TNSCPCR herself has come out in the open with details of the instances where children were denied their rights as per the RTE Act. “Children who did not score well in the monthly tests are being removed because schools want perfect results. It is shocking because it is the responsibility of the schools to provide adequate attention to these children,” M P Nirmala, chairperson, TNSCPCR had told reporters recently.
A Government school teacher working in a remote village in Vellore district told The Pioneer that the Tamil Nadu Government wants to protect the commercial interests of the private schools management . “According to RTE Act 2009, all private schools are required to set apart seats for children from less privileged families. The management is totally against this because they cannot charge capitation fee for the seats under this category,” she said.
But the most scathing attack came from Dr Y R Johnson, former principal of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya. “leaders of all major political parties in Tamil Nadu own private schools imparting CBSE syllabus. It is to protect the turf of the private schools these leaders from the DMK as well as the AIADMK camp oppose the Navodaya Vidyalaya concept which offers free and quality education to poor children in all districts in Tamil Nadu. Ours is the only State in the country which does not allow Navodaya Vidyalayas,” said Dr Johnson, who worked as principal of Navodaya Vidyalya for more than two decades.
This septuagenarian educationist pointed out that teachers from Tamil Nadu are setting up and managing Navodaya Vidyalayas all over the country except in their home state because the Dravidian politicians. “They scare the people by spreading fasehoods that such schools were an attempt by the centre to saffronise the State. The Navodaya Vidyalayas were launched in 1986 by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Was Rajiv Gandhi trying to saffronise Tamil NaduIJ”, asked Dr Johnson. He also said that politicians in Tamil Nadu who has never seen Navodaya Vidyalaya even once in their life time were the main opponents of the concept.
“Had there been Navodaya Vidyalayas in Tamil Nadu, we would not have come across incidents like poor students getting thrown out of schools on one pretext or other,” said Dr Johnson and Ravinson.
Though the Madras High Court had ordered the Tamil Nadu Government to take immediate steps to set up Navodaya Vidyalayas in the State, the latter got the order quashed by the apex court by claiming that such schools threatened the autonomy of the State.