In March of this past year the Washington, D.C. Chapter held two detailed discussions over the 2005 Right to Education (RTE) bill which is an act to put into effect the right to free and compulsory education for all children between the ages of 6 and 14. There were 12 and 6 members in attendance at these two discussions respectively. The group used the comments provided by Asha’s Seattle chapter as a platform from which to begin its own discussion. Topics such as the citizen’s duty to comply, early education, the gender gap, curriculum, teacher enforcement, infrastructure, and finances were discussed.

Asha DC concurred with the Seattle chapter’s concerns regarding the duty of citizens in following through with this bill. The emphasis should be on education as a right, not a compulsory act. In fact, the program should be more incentive based with incentives such as scholarships, mid-day meals, and health check-ups available to encourage parents to send their children to school and children to attend.

The bill does not recognize the need for education at an early age as proven by its limited scope in providing education to children between the ages of 6 and 14. It is unclear on what basis the age 6 was chosen. The number seems arbitrary considering that many children start attending school in India at the ages of four or five. Asha DC members proposed that the bill should include a provision for pre-school activities to be provided for children between the ages of three and six. Such a provision will better prepare children with uneducated parents for elementary education.

What is the right age to start learning? Is RTE limited in its scope to reach children of all ages?	Asha DC advocates closing in on the gender gap in the RTE bill.

As currently written, the bill does not address the growing gender gap in education. Girls are often forced to drop out of school or are not sent to school at all. Asha DC members believe that the bill should identify benchmarks for closing this gap. Scholarships should also be provided for female children on both performance and financial need based criteria.

In regard to curriculum, the group believed that the bill should include standards to evaluate children and ensure that they are actually learning. The bill mentions that standards will be prescribed by a "Competent Academic Authority," but does not specify what this body actually is and does. It remains unclear whether the Competent Academic Authority would serve as a School Board.

The group also advocated an optimal student/teacher ratio and proposed that the bill should take into account that many students will be starting from scratch with no prior education. The bill does not specify what level of skills is desired from children before they are promoted to the next class level. The group believes that testing should be extended to grades 1 and 3 in addition to grades five and eight to ensure that students are not falling behind in their studies from early on. In addition, the bill does not mention if and when English will be taught in schools.

Asha DC members felt that some basic enforcement metrics should be identified in order to track teacher attendance, performance of students, and student accessibility to schools to name a few. Accessibility to schools should be determined by population density and distance from dwellings to the school. Teachers should be paid competitive salaries in order to attract a talented teaching pool, but measures must be in place to ensure teacher attendance which is a current problem in Indian government schools. The group believes that greater parental or civil society involvement/demands may help with teacher attendance.

An ideal RTE bill should also make provisions for School infrastructure and facilities.

The group also discussed school infrastructure and financial concerns. First, facilities at all schools should be functioning. Second, there should be enough female teachers. Third, the “good faith” clause referenced in the bill must be revised because it relinquishes the government of responsibility too easily. Finally, the group agreed that resources and funding should come from the central government to deter unnecessary constraints on state government budgets. Members strongly believed that shifting the burden to state governments would lead to non-implementation as has been the result in the past for similar initiatives.

Overall, the group agreed that this is a positive initiative to promote education for children regardless of socio-economic backgrounds. However, the bill requires additional clarification and changes in certain areas as stated above to achieve its end state. We at our end will continue to campaign the cause, both as a charity that cares about education, and as a group that believes in human rights. For those of you, who would like to learn more about the bill, please visit http://www.ilpnet.org/rte/