Right to Education

Right to Education
The RTE act has finally seen its day, it is an important step in achieving the objective of Universal education in the country. However like all other acts it will suffer from implementation issues on the ground.
1) How do we ensure that every child between 6-14 yrs goes to the nearby Govt or Private school. What is the mechanism by which we prod parents to send their children to school. In a lot of cases children above 8 yrs are also bread earners in the family. How will the family be fed are some of the issues.
2) Will the private institutions co-operate in reserving 25% seats for this category of students. I guess they hate to see these students in their premises. Private schools in India have become elitist over the years and I do not see them co-opting in this social development initiative. They will raise a whole lot of issues in terms of dilution of standards, rising costs of education, demand free hand in fixing fees in lieu of co-opting for this program etc.
Despite all the hurdles it is one social development program that needs complete attention of the district level administration in the country, schools should be audited on enrolment numbers from this year. They also should be audited on rejections and the reasons, this is more applicable to the private institutions. Schools should be penalized for unreasonable rejections and de-recognized for serial non-compliance.
Communities, states or other categories of the society which are lagging behind in literacy should be focus groups for this initiative, Bihar and UP are two states where this act should be implemented in full zeal. There needs to be country wide campaign at district and village levels bringing awareness about this program. I am sure at this time the programs objectives and implementation modalities are not known to many. This has been a bane in this country, useful laws are enacted but not enough follow up is there on implementation.
There should be an effective collaboration between the states, NGOs and other social bodies to ensure success of this program. Let us hope that this act will be talked about as the most successful social transformation initiative that has ever been rolled out in this country since independence.

Riots and Political will

After more than a decade Hyderabad woke up to communal rites. Parts of the city are still under curfew. The usual suspects MIM and activists of BJP are under scanner.
There are accusations flying around on who and what is the trigger, MIMs unusual exuberance in celebrating Milad Nabi this year apparently upset the right wing parties and of course there is an underlying anger against AP Govt pushing for reservations in Jobs and educational institutions for the Muslim minority of the state.
While the recent occurrence can be considered a one off instance since it has happened after a long time there are some lessons the Govt has to learn and fix them to ensure this doesn’t repeat.
The MIM pretty much controls the old city and their writ runs without resistance. The Owaisi family runs their political organization with an iron hand and do not brook any political resistance or allow space for alternative parties to represent the aspirations of the minority constituency. In the last election they manhandled the opposition candidate and made his life difficult in running the campaign.
While the sky line of Hyderabad overall has changed over the years Old city remains unattended to. Development has taken a back seat due to interference by the political elements in administration. The Naidu administration was successful to some extent in carrying out some development activities and tried to break the strangle hold of MIM but the Congress (YSR and the current CM) are playing into the hands of the MIM and are scarred of taking any action against the Old city hoodlums.
MIM hardly cares for the well being of their constituents. They are representing the Old city and the nearby areas for decades but have nothing to show in terms of their record on development.
On the other side of the spectrum are the VHP and the other right wingers who look for an opportunity to escalate tensions on one reason or other.
It is a total failure of the state government in not anticipating trouble and showing weak knees in controlling the situation once the riots have broken out. There is a need for a strong political will in taking administration to the old city and bringing in development work to the area. Ensure that the boy and girl child of the old city goes to school and get them out of the vicious cycle of poverty and violence.