Awaaz Do: Speak Up For Every Child’s Right To Education

8 million Indian children are not in school! The power of your words can help change their lives. All children 6 to 14 years old have the right to free and quality education under the recently-passed Right to Education Act.

Do you believe in the dream of an India where every child is educated and free to live a happy childhood? You know what? It’s possible! And it’s now your opportunity to make a difference.

Why is the RTE Act 2009 significant and what does it mean for India?

The passing of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009 marks a historic moment for the children of India. This Act serves as a building block to ensure that every child has his or her right (as an entitlement) to get a quality elementary education.

The State, with the help of families and communities, is responsible for fulfilling this obligation. Few countries in the world have such a national provision to ensure both free and child-centered, child-friendly education.

What is ‘Free and Compulsory Elementary Education’?

All children between the ages of 6 and 14 shall have the right to free and compulsory elementary education at a neighborhood school. There is no direct (school fees) or indirect cost (uniforms, textbooks, mid-day meals, transportation) to be borne by the child or the parents to obtain elementary education. The government will provide schooling free-of-cost until a child’s elementary education is completed.

The RTE Act specifies minimum norms in government schools. It requires all private schools to reserve 25% of seats for children from poor families (to be reimbursed by the state as part of the public-private partnership plan).

The Act also provides that no child shall be held back, expelled, or required to pass a board examination until the completion of elementary education. There is also a provision for special training of school drop-outs to bring them up to par with students of the same age.

The RTE Act is the first legislation in the world that puts the responsibility of ensuring enrollment, attendance and completion on the Government. The Right to Education of persons with disabilities until 18 years of age has also been made a fundamental right. A number of other provisions regarding improvement of school infrastructure, teacher-student ratio and faculty are made in the Act.

Where Are India’s 8 Million Missing Children?

But there were an estimated eight million six to fourteen year-olds in India out-of-school in 2009. The world cannot reach its goal to have every child complete primary school by 2015 without India’s participation.

To make the Right to Education Act successful, it is important that each one of us knows about it so that every child who is not in school can be sent back for free and quality education.

But this won’t happen overnight. Every one of us must make some noise and speak up. India has the potential to enter the world stage as a global super power. But that won’t happen unless every child goes to school.

What Is AWAAZ DO & How Can I A Make A Difference?

Join the Awaaz Do movement from Unicef India by signing up now for India’s children. Stand up and demand that all of India’s children have the right to education. It starts with you!  Ask your friends to be a part of getting every single girl and boy into school. Do it now for India’s future.

Come forward and donate to UNICEF to help change 8 million lives. Spread the word to your family and friends. You can SMS, e-mail or just talk to them and ask them to speak up and raise their voice for children. One voice makes a difference but together we can help change the fate of 8 million children. The time to begin is NOW!

Find a school near you and make a visit. Check if the school has:

• Separate toilets for boys and girls.
• Drinking water and places for students to wash their hands with soap.
• Playgrounds for playing sports and having fun.
• A school library for students and their teachers.
• Mid-day meals for children.

You can meet the school head, teachers, community members and even the parents of children enrolled there and talk to them about the RTE Act. Let them know about the highlights and let them know how every child can benefit.

Many Indian schools don't have separate toilets for boys and girls

Fact-Sheet On Education In India

• The number of out-of-school children has declined from 25 million in 2003 to 8.1 million in mid-2009. The most significant improvements have been in Bihar, Jharkhand, Manipur and Chhattisgarh.
• The percentage of out-of-school children in highly populated states like Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa and Bihar remains a cause of concern.
• There has been tremendous progress in improving access with 99 per cent of habitations having a primary school within one kilometer, and 92 per cent an upper primary school within 3 kilometers.
• There have been considerable improvements in the proportions of children from socially disadvantaged groups enrolled in school. For Scheduled Caste (SC) students, 19.7 per cent were enrolled in 2008-2009, with 11% enrolled for Scheduled Tribe (ST) students.
• The proportion of ST children at upper primary level is much lower, indicating that ST children are more vulnerable to dropping out from the school system. As many as 23.4 per cent of Muslim school children are out-of-school.
• 84 out of 100 schools have drinking water facilities overall in India. But nearly half the schools in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya do not.
• 65 out of 100 schools have common toilets in India; however only 1 out of 4 schools in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Chandigarh, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Orissa and Rajasthan have this facility.
• 54 of 100 schools have separate toilets for girls. On an average, only 1 in 9 schools in Assam, Meghalaya, and Manipur have separate toilets and 1 in 4 schools in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand and Orissa.
• The RTE Act has specific provisions for disadvantaged groups, such as child laborers, migrant children, children with special needs, or those who have a “disadvantage owing to social, cultural, economical, geographical, linguistic, gender or such other factor.”
• Creative and sustained initiatives are crucial to train more than 1 million new and untrained teachers within the next five years and to reinforce the skills of existing teachers to ensure child-friendly education.
• School Management Committees, made up of parents, local authorities, teachers and children themselves, will need support to form School Development Plans and monitoring. The inclusion of 50 per cent women and parents of children from disadvantaged groups in these committees should help overcome past disparities.

Awaaz Do!

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Additional resources for educators:

• How To Create A High-Quality Preschool Classroom – How a preschool teacher can gain the skills, knowledge and resources to develop a high-quality classroom designed to prepare children for kindergarten.
• How to Motivate Children in the Classroom – NLP Parenting and Teachers program highlights the strategies and techniques that include a combination of common sense judgment and Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques to enrich and motivate kids and students in school, home and social interactions right through to their adult lives.
• Positive .Discipline In The Classroom: Teacher’s Package – Hundreds of schools use these amazingly effective strategies for restoring order and civility to today’s turbulent classrooms. Now you too can use this philosophy as a foundation for fostering cooperation, problem-solving skills, and mutual respect in children. Instead of controlling behavior, you can be teaching; instead of confronting apathy, you will enjoy motivated, eager students!

The Classroom – The right to free education

Bringing Child Labourers Back to School

Photo source schlitzy