JOIN USDr Kripa Amar Alva, chairperson of Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (KSCPCR), on Tuesday said that the government’s claims that 90 per cent of the children in the State were going to school were contrary to the ground reality.
Speaking at a programme organised by People’s Alliance for Fundamental Right to Education (PAFRE), Alva said education was still a distant dream for most children as they were forced to work as labourers. The school dropout rate is also high.
“Education did not get its fair share of funds since independence. Had adequate funds been allocated, no one would have been left uneducated now,” she said. She called upon the non-government organisations (NGOs) working towards the proper implementation of Right to Education (RTE) to ensure that all dropouts are brought back to school this year.
Dr V P Niranjan Aradhya, educationist and Fellow, Centre for Child and Law, National Law School of India University (NLSIU), also blamed the government for indirectly encouraging private schools by not taking serious efforts to improve the government schools.
He said admissions in government schools had been decreasing over the years, due to the apathy of the government towards providing facilities in these schools. As government school teachers are utilised for census, election duty and other work, students are deprived of quality education.
The allocation of funds to the education sector in the recent budget came down by 0.74 per cent from last year, which itself is an indication of the government’s apathy towards the sector. Aradhya said that the government was supposed to form a board to oversee the implementation of RTE, but it had not done so.