Gujarat Recognized For Complying Better With RTE

Recently, Gujarat was a point of discussion at a conference in New Delhi to mark three years of RTE Act. Founder of Central Square Education, Ashish Dhawan, cited Gujarat as an example when speaking about ‘RTE - Challenges and Solutions'.

Experts might have praised Gujarat but Annual Status of Education Report-2012 says that it's a mixed bag. ASER surveyed 692 schools in Gujarat to check their compliance with RTE, which showed that the state lagged in several parameters including usability of girls' toilets, availability of playgrounds and drinking water.

About 17.4% of girls' toilets were unusable, while a further 11.3% of them were found locked. Only 79.7% of schools surveyed had playgrounds, down from 83.4% of schools in 2011. Drinking water, too, has become scarce. In 2012, 11.1% of surveyed schools didn't have drinking-water facility, up from 10.3% in 2011. Gujarat, however, has performed better in pupil-teacher ratio, overall usability of toilets, mid-day meals, and kitchen sheds in schools.

Now, Gujarat is performing better in complying with RTE norms. MD of Educational Initiatives, Sridhar Rajagopalan, who was one of the speakers at an education seminar on Thursday, said that Gujarat's learning outcome is better than of other states. He didn't have data to support the claim, but said that Gujarat's model for implementation of RTE can be adopted by other states.

March 31st was said to be the last day of the three year time period given for schools in India in order to enforce and meet the eligibility for RTE (Right To Free And Compulsory Education) Act.

According to the reports, about 90% of the schools in India are yet to comply with the RTE. Meanwhile the State Gujarat has won the recognition with highest number of schools accepting the rules of RTE Act.