JOIN USAfter nearly six months of consultation with various stakeholders, the draft rules under the Right to Education (RTE) Act will be submitted to the Education department on Tuesday.
The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) - the nodal agency to implement the RTE - will submit the final version of the draft rules to the Education department.
Following this, the draft rules will have to be scrutinised by the Law and Finance departments.
A preliminary notification will then be issued by the State government. The public will be allowed to send in their suggestions and objections to the draft notification before 30 days. After scrutinising these, the final notification will be issued by the government.
Too late for this year?
The rules have probably come a little late for implementing some of the provisions of the Act in the coming academic year.
For instance, the 25 percent quota for students from economically weaker sections of society is not likely to be implemented, as the rules are expected to be finalised only by March or April.
Moreover, funding issues are yet to be resolved with the Central government, as the State government has stated that it is unwilling to foot the bill for any additional expenditure on account of the Act.
What’s new?
Ever since the first version of the draft rules was put up on the SSA website back in August, the SSA has been involved in processing thousands of suggestions, following consultations with various stakeholders. SSA officials told Deccan Herald that one of the changes is to shift the responsibility of inquiring into violations of the Act from department officials, such as the block education officers and deputy directors, to committees consisting of eminent people and local citizens.
“Several private schools had objected to giving officials these powers as they (schools) could be subjected to harassment,” an official said. SSA is in the process of finalising the reimbursement amount for private schools for taking in students from economically weaker sections. Officials have proposed the amount to be in the range of Rs 7,000 to Rs 13,000 per annum.