MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
(SHRI UPENDRA KUSHWAHA)
(a): Yes, Madam. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, mandates
that every child of the age of six to fourteen years shall have the right to free and compulsory education in
a neighbourhood school till the completion of his or her elementary education. The Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan (SSA) Programme has been designated as the vehicle for implementing the provisions of RTE
Act, 2009. Since inception of SSA in 2001, there has been significant progress in achieving near universal
enrolment. As per UDISE 2015-16, enrolment of children in elementary schools has increased from 18.78
crore in 2009-10 to 19.67 crore in 2015-16.
(b): The RTE Act, 2009 lays down the duties of the appropriate Government and the local authority to
provide good quality elementary education conforming to norms and standards and to ensure that
curriculum and courses of study are prescribed in a timely manner, and that teachers are trained. In order
to focus on quality education, the Central RTE Rules have been amended on 20th February, 2017 to
include reference on class-wise, subject-wise Learning Outcomes. The Learning Outcomes
for each class in Languages (Hindi, English and Urdu), Mathematics, Environmental Studies, Science and
Social Science up to the elementary stage have, accordingly, been finalized and shared with all States and
UTs. These would serve as a guideline for States and UTs to ensure that all children acquire appropriate
learning level.
(c) and (d): Achievement surveys are released in the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) by
‘Pratham’ - a non-governmental organization. It is a household survey limited to rural areas of the
country. Some of the salient findings of the ASER-2017 report include inter-alia, that, overall, 86% of
youth in the 14-18 age group are still within the formal education system, either in school or in college,
75% of children in the 14 to 18 age group can read basic text fluently in their own language. Further, 53%
of all 14 year-olds in the sample can read English sentences. For 18 year-old youth, this figure is closer to
60%. Of those who can read English sentences, 79% can say the meaning of the sentence. Also, 76% of
surveyed youth could count money correctly and 56% could add weights correctly in kilograms and for
those with basic arithmetic skills this figure was close to 90% and 76%, respectively. However, the report
points out that only 43% student are able to do a 3-digit by 1-digit division correctly.
The Department of School Education & Literacy, Ministry of Human Resource Development was not
associated with this survey.
(e): The RTE Act 2009, in its Schedule, lays down the Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) for primary and
upper primary schools at 30:1 and 35:1 respectively. As per UDISE 2015-16, the PTR at national level for
primary and upper primary schools is 23:1 and 17:1 respectively which is better than the norms of the
RTE Act 2009. As on 31st March 2017, against a total of 51.03 lakh teacher posts sanctioned in
Government schools, 42.03 lakh teachers are in position across all States and UTs. The terms and
conditions of recruitment and service of teachers come under the purview of respective states/UTs.
(f): A National Achievement Survey (NAS) was conducted on 13th November 2017 through which
the learning levels of around 22 lakh students of Classes III, V and VIII from 1.10 lakh schools across
700 districts in all 36 States and UTs were assessed. This competency based assessment was based on the
Learning Outcomes developed by NCERT. District report cards (provisional) for NAS 2017 have been
released by this Department and are available on MHRD website. Through NAS, it is for the first time
that the teachers have a tool to understand what exactly the child should be learning in various classes,
how to teach this through activities and how to measure and ensure that children have reached the
required level.
The RTE Act, 2009 was amended in 2017 to ensure that all teachers acquire the minimum
qualifications prescribed under the Act by 31st March 2019 to reinforce the Government''s emphasis on
improvement of quality of elementary education. The National Institute of Open schooling (NIOS) has
been entrusted to conduct this training through Open Distance Learning (ODL) mode. A total of
13,78,935 admissions of in-service untrained teachers have been confirmed for the programme.
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