Title: A Study on the Awareness of Equitable Quality in the Light of RTE Act ‘09 among In-Service School Teachers
Abstract: One of the primary objectives of Right of Children Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 is to ensure equitable quality in the classrooms. School education can’t be separated from its social context, those who teach and learn, their attitudes, beliefs, habits and customs. The present experience of India with diversified classroom is not encouraging. The children from marginalized sections of society are being discriminated on the bases of gender, caste, and ethnicity. In this paper we have studied the awareness level of equitable quality cited in RTE act 2009 among in-service school teachers in three districts of West Bengal. The study revealed that the level of awareness among teachers included in this study is not encouraging. Introduction The destiny of a nation is shaped in her classrooms – this observation of the Kothari Commission (1964 – 66) is not an exaggeration when we consider the importance education holds in guiding a nation to desirable social change. In India, universal admission and retention of children to elementary education is yet a distant dream. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 has been duly passed in the Parliament; but it is not enough unless it is implemented in reality. The present experience of India with diversified classrooms is not encouraging. The concept of equity and equality of educational opportunities sometimes remain only in paper due to teachers’ lack of awareness of or indifference to these concepts. Concept of equity Equity is the state or condition of being fair, the idea that all individuals should be treated according to their needs and merits. In education, it is connected to the idea that the student’s needs and abilities should be taken into account in designing educational programmes. The term refers to the fairness of education and whether or not all participating stake holders – male, female and various population groups – receive the same benefits. Equity is often connected to the idea of equality of educational opportunities – the idea that schools should serve the function of giving all students the same chances for success in life (The Greenwood Dictionary of Education, 2003). The concept of equity in education can be achieved by pursuing the policy of protective discrimination in favour of the disadvantaged section of the society. In this sense, most of the developing countries of the world including India have set equity as a major goal of educational policy. RTE Act, 2009 on Equitable Classroom Millions of children in India are impoverished, abandoned, uneducated, discriminated against and neglected. For them, life is a daily struggle to survive. Since 1924, when the League of Nations adopted the Geneva Declaration of the ‘Rights of the Child’, the international community has made a series of firm commitments to children to ensure that their rights to health, education and survival, among others, are met. Meeting of the Millennium Development Goals (2000) dreamt of transforming the lives of millions of children as they gain access to complete schooling and ensure the elimination of gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005 and at all levels by 2015. As a signatory to this human rights treaty, India can not deny the pledge of the MDG. Today 18 crore children in India are taught by a 57 lakh teachers in more than 12 lakh primary and upper primary schools. Over 98% of our children are supposed to have access to primary schools and 92% to upper primary schools. This notable physical access, however, has not been supported by satisfactory curricular intervention including teachinglearning materials, training designs, assessment systems and classroom practices. An alarming 46% 0f children, largely girls, SC, ST and other disadvantaged group children drop out before completing the elementary education. So the situation demanded to take a firm decision so that all children, irrespective of their religion, caste, creed, class, gender and location get an education of equitable quality. RTE Act envisages heterogeneous classrooms where all students have equitable access to grade-appropriate and intellectually challenging curriculum, productive interactions with the teacher and equal – status interactions with peers. In such a classroom students display their skills, talents and understanding of the content. This Act, by making all private aided and unaided schools comply with 25% reservation for the disadvantaged children, seeks to strengthen the social fabric of our democracy. This Act provides justiciable legal framework that entitles all children between the ages of 6 – 14 years to an education of reasonable quality, based on principles of equity and non-discrimination. The RTE Act reminds us that this notion of ‘merit’ decided by screening test of the children is actually connected to social advantage. Children who come from disadvantaged background need greater attention and the best academic support to promote equitable quality. The report of the Yash Pal Committee – ‘Learning Without Burden’ (1993) had pointed out that the educational burden resulted from bombarding the children with information that they could not understand at that age. RTE Act attempts to redress this issue. Teacher’s Role to Promote Equitable Quality National Knowledge Commission (2007) in its report held that teachers are the single-most important factor in school education system. It is well known that the quality and extent of learners’ achievement are determined primarily by teacher-competence, sensitivity and motivation. In order to develop the future citizens of our land, who promote equitable and sustainable development for all sections of society, it is necessary that they be educated through perspective of gender equity, values for peace and respect for the rights of their fellow citizens. For this, teachers need to be equipped to understand these issues and incorporate them in their teaching. To realize the goals of equitable quality, teachers should have awareness of the child – centric provisions as