Saturday 28 March 2015

RTE: Odisha scores low on most fronts

Three years after it came into force, Right to Education Act has not borne fruit in Odisha as the State continued to lag in important indicators.
 Policy limitations and constraints apart, the State seems to have performed badly when it comes to important platforms. There are 35,928 primary and 20,427 upper primary schools at elementary level. The Government opened 491 new primary and 490 upper primary schools under SSA to provide schooling in unserved areas. However, more than 50 per cent of the teachers are contractual. Around 10 per cent schools of the State operates with a single teacher, the National Coalition for Education (NCE) said here on Thursday.
 Data from the Annual Survey on Education Report 2011 and DISE 2010-11 revealed that Odisha is behind many states when it comes to out-of-school children and dropout rates and compliance to RTE norms like playground in schools, girls toilet, kitchen-shed for midday meal. Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Kerala and Chhattisgarh and small states like Manipur and Mizoram also score better than Odisha.
 Percentage of out-of-school children in Odisha was 3.7 whereas in Himachal Pradesh and Mizoram it was 0.6 and 1.1 in Manipur and Haryana. Dropout rate in the State was 10 per cent while Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Manipur and Himachal Pradesh fared better. Over 67 per cent students in Standard I and II can read, write and do more in Odisha whereas their percentage was higher in Haryana, HP, Kerala, Manipur and Mizoram.  Though Odisha is the second state to enact the state RTE rules, many of the RTE progressive parameters are yet to be achieved, State advocacy coordinator of NCE Naba Kishore Pujari said.
 The NCE demanded that the State Government must immediately form the inter-departmental coordination committee as the RTE Act implementation depends on the coordination of various departments.  Besides, the State Advisory Council on education is yet to be constituted.
The coalition alleged that the Government has agreed to establish 105 schools under PPP mode which would be run by corporate houses but it is not acceptable as RTE guarantees free and compulsory education up to Class VIII in all public schools of the country. The decision must be immediately rolled back. It also called for guidelines for out-of-school children in the State and information on number of economically weaker section children admitted to private schools under 25 per cent reservation.
“The Government must refrain from recruiting contractual teachers as it is paradoxical to RTE,” Pujari said.

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