Major highlights of Indore division suggestions for National Education Policy 2019 from education department
Right to Education (RTE) Act aims to provide ‘free’ and quality education to all, under which 25 percent seats of private schools are reserved for government sponsored children. The idea was to allow an underprivileged child to get quality education and fulfil their dream of studying in a renowned private school.
However, the dream has been tampered by many private schools that are simply running to get RTE funds from government and lacking in providing quality education. Limiting RTE to renowned and quality schools is a major suggestion that will be given for National Education Policy 2019 by Education Department, Indore division.
This was concluded in ‘Education Policy’ meeting organised by Joint Director Manish Verma on Friday. The meeting had collective decisions from Indore division including Barwani, Khandwa, Khargone, Burhanpur, Dhar, Alirajpur, Jhabua.
During the discussion, Verma said, “Currently, the RTE Act provides for free and compulsory education to all children from the age of six to 14 years.” He noted that the draft Policy recommends extending the ambit of the RTE Act to include early childhood education and secondary school education.
“This would extend the coverage of the Act to all children between the ages of three to 18 years,” Verma said. However, while lakhs of people apply for admission under RTE, many do not register the admission even after last dates.
“The major reason for people not registering the admission is lack of satisfaction with the school allotted,” Verma said. He explained that many of these schools are not as equipped as even government schools.
“Government is paying lakhs of rupees to these schools, which do not match quality of government schools also, so there is no point is having 25 percent quota in such schools,” Verma said. He cited many students, who opt for government schools over allotted schools under RTE.
Before the concluding meeting, first part of the meeting was organised in various districts in the first half of the day on Friday. Following are major suggestions and discussion points of the meeting. Other suggestions will be collected and drafted in the coming weeks.
Early Childhood Care and Education
In addition to problems of access, the Committee observed several quality related deficiencies in the existing early childhood learning programmes. These include:
(i) Curriculum that doesn’t meet the developmental needs of children,
(ii) Lack of qualified and trained teachers, and (iii) substandard pedagogy. Currently, most early childhood education is delivered through anganwadis and private-preschools. However, there has been less focus on the educational aspects of early childhood. Hence, the draft Policy recommends developing a two-part curriculum for early childhood care and education.
This will consist of:
(i) Guidelines for up to three-year-old children (for parents and teachers), and
(ii) Educational framework for three to eight-year-old children. This would be implemented by improving and expanding the anganwadi system and co-locating anganwadis with primary schools.
SUGGESTION: Anganwadis are already responsible for eliciting community support, care for new borns, survey their areas, support pregnant women, organise supplementary nutrition feeding for children, ensure timely vaccinations of children in their area, provide counselling and more such responsibilities that are quoted in the 21 points. There are not many anganwadi workers in one anganwadi. Though we can train them, but they might not be able to deliver quality education to pre-primary children due to their other roles and responsibility. We suggest training local girls and people to become educators for pre-primary children and giving them a proper place in the education system.
However, the dream has been tampered by many private schools that are simply running to get RTE funds from government and lacking in providing quality education. Limiting RTE to renowned and quality schools is a major suggestion that will be given for National Education Policy 2019 by Education Department, Indore division.
This was concluded in ‘Education Policy’ meeting organised by Joint Director Manish Verma on Friday. The meeting had collective decisions from Indore division including Barwani, Khandwa, Khargone, Burhanpur, Dhar, Alirajpur, Jhabua.
During the discussion, Verma said, “Currently, the RTE Act provides for free and compulsory education to all children from the age of six to 14 years.” He noted that the draft Policy recommends extending the ambit of the RTE Act to include early childhood education and secondary school education.
“This would extend the coverage of the Act to all children between the ages of three to 18 years,” Verma said. However, while lakhs of people apply for admission under RTE, many do not register the admission even after last dates.
“The major reason for people not registering the admission is lack of satisfaction with the school allotted,” Verma said. He explained that many of these schools are not as equipped as even government schools.
“Government is paying lakhs of rupees to these schools, which do not match quality of government schools also, so there is no point is having 25 percent quota in such schools,” Verma said. He cited many students, who opt for government schools over allotted schools under RTE.
Before the concluding meeting, first part of the meeting was organised in various districts in the first half of the day on Friday. Following are major suggestions and discussion points of the meeting. Other suggestions will be collected and drafted in the coming weeks.
Early Childhood Care and Education
In addition to problems of access, the Committee observed several quality related deficiencies in the existing early childhood learning programmes. These include:
(i) Curriculum that doesn’t meet the developmental needs of children,
(ii) Lack of qualified and trained teachers, and (iii) substandard pedagogy. Currently, most early childhood education is delivered through anganwadis and private-preschools. However, there has been less focus on the educational aspects of early childhood. Hence, the draft Policy recommends developing a two-part curriculum for early childhood care and education.
This will consist of:
(i) Guidelines for up to three-year-old children (for parents and teachers), and
(ii) Educational framework for three to eight-year-old children. This would be implemented by improving and expanding the anganwadi system and co-locating anganwadis with primary schools.
SUGGESTION: Anganwadis are already responsible for eliciting community support, care for new borns, survey their areas, support pregnant women, organise supplementary nutrition feeding for children, ensure timely vaccinations of children in their area, provide counselling and more such responsibilities that are quoted in the 21 points. There are not many anganwadi workers in one anganwadi. Though we can train them, but they might not be able to deliver quality education to pre-primary children due to their other roles and responsibility. We suggest training local girls and people to become educators for pre-primary children and giving them a proper place in the education system.