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According to the new proposal, while government schools must reserve 25% seats for children from 'weaker sections' reservation of any kind in private schools is compulsory only if the said institution has received some concession from the government
A proposal to reserve 25% of seats in all private schools in India for underprivileged children appears to have been dropped in the face of sustained pressure from the private school lobby. The Indian government has reportedly omitted the quota clause from the free and compulsory elementary education bill that has been in the pipeline for over four years.
The reservation proposal was part of the original draft legislation which would have fully realised the Fundamental Right to Education as enacted by the 86th Amendment to the Constitution. However, the draft currently under consideration, falls far short of this promise.
The new clause makes it compulsory for all government-run schools -- except schools of specified categories and fully-aided schools-- to provide free and compulsory elementary education. Private, aided schools -- that is schools that receive substantial grants from the government -- will have to provide free and compulsory education to students proportionate to the ratio of their annual recurring aid to their annual running costs.
However, reservation of any kind in private schools is compulsory only if the said institution has received some concession from the government. According to the current draft, only those private schools "under obligation at the commencement of this Act to either the Central Government or an appropriate government or any authority/agency representing or acting on their behalf to provide free education to a specified number of children as a consequence of having received land/building/equipment/other facilities either free of cost or at subsidised rates" will have to make this concession. Thus, private unaide schools have been let off the hook.
From the outset, private schools have been lobbying with the government to get the reservation clause scrapped. They argue that children from weaker sections will find it difficult to cope with the syllabus. Also, that their backgrounds will be very different from those that usually study in these schools, causing socialisation problems that the authorities will have trouble coping with.
However, the real reason, say proponents of the quota is that if these schools were to make space for underprivileged children, they would have to accept loss of some income. Members of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE), a body that helped draft the bill, say they will not allow the government to scrap the quota.
There have been instances of the private school lobby getting its way with the government and the school examination boards. Barring a few, most schools in New Delhi have reneged on their commitment to keeping a 15 % for children from poor families. The commitment was part of the understanding with the Delhi government that gave them land at a concessional rate.
Also recently, the Central Board of Secondary Education made it optional for private schools to offer a fee waiver to girls from single child families. But it was made mandatory for government schools.
In the very first draft of the Right to Education Bill the former National Democratic Alliance government had confined the reservation policy to children from poor families and capped the reserved component at 20 %. The current United Progressive Alliance government, in its drafts, increased the reservation to 25% and instead of confining it to children from poor families, first used the term "disadvantaged groups" and then replaced it with "weaker sections" in successive drafts.
Source: The Hindu, May 22,
2006
The Telegraph,
May22,2006
UNI, May 22, 2006
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