MINISTER OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT (SHRI KAPIL SIBAL)
(a) to (e): A statement is laid on the Table of the House.
STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (a) TO (e) OF LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 246, ASKED BY SHRI T.R. BAALU AND
SHRI OM PRAKASH YADAV, TO BE ANSWERED ON 29.08.2012 REGARDING IMPROVEMENT IN QUALITY OF EDUCATION
(a) to (e): Aggregate public spending on education during the Eleventh Plan period is estimated at `12,44,797 crore,
of which about 43% is for elementary education. The per capita public expenditure on education was `2985 in 2011-12. The
per capita expenditure in Government schools varies from State to State as it depends on the respective State’s own
investment in elementary education.
The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 became operative from 01st April, 2010 and
incorporates several features to improve the quality of elementary education. To ensure the availability of professionally
qualified teachers in schools, Section 23(1) of the Act provides that only a person possessing the minimum qualifications,
as laid down by an academic authority notified by the Central Government shall be eligible for appointment as a teacher.
Further, it provides that a teacher who, at the commencement of the RTE Act, does not possess minimum qualification
shall acquire such minimum qualifications within a period of five years. The National Council for Teacher Education
(NCTE), notified as the academic authority under Section 23(1) has accordingly laid down the minimum qualifications
for a person to be eligible for recruitment as an elementary school teacher and made the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET)
mandatory for this purpose.
To ensure availability of teachers, Section 25 of the Act requires the appropriate government and the local
authority to ensure that the Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) is maintained in each school, and mandates that no teacher
posted in a school be made to serve in any other school or office or deployed for any non-educational purpose, other
than the specified tasks. Section 26 of the Act further provides that vacancies of teachers in a government and
government aided school shall not exceed 10% of the total sanctioned strength. The Schedule to the Act prescribes the
PTR at primary & upper primary level, provides for a head master in larger schools, subject teachers in upper primary
schools, and part time instructors for Art, Health, Physical & Work education.
In order to improve the teaching learning process, Section 24 of the RTE Act lays down the duties of teachers
that include inter alia, conducting and completing the prescribed curriculum within the specified time, assessing the
learning ability of each child and providing supplementary instruction, if required, holding regular meetings with
parents and guardians to apprise them of the child’s regularity in attendance, ability to learn and progress made
in learning, etc. The Schedule to the Act also prescribes minimum number of working days/instructional hours in an
academic year, minimum number of working hours per week for teachers and provisions for library, teaching learning
equipment and sports equipment in schools.
Further, Section 29 of the RTE Act lays down parameters for a child centric curriculum to be taught and for
comprehensive and continuous evaluation of the student at the elementary school level.
In order to measure quality outcomes, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) conducts
periodic surveys of learning achievement of children in classes III, V and VIII every two to three years, which
provide national trends as well as comparative State data. Two rounds of surveys for classes III & VIII and three
rounds for class V reveal improvements in the mean score of students at the elementary level in the country.
