MINISTER OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT (SMT. SMRITI ZUBIN IRANI)
(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. 253 TO BE ANSWERED ON 10TH DECEMBER, 2014 ASKED BY SHRI OM PRAKASH YADAV AND SHRIMATI SAKUNTALA LAGURI REGARDING IMPLEMENTATION OF RTE ACT
(a) to (e): The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, effective from 1st April, 2010, 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. All States/UTs are implementing the RTE Act, 2009 across the country, as per their respective notified State RTE Rules.
In order to assist states/UTs in meeting the objectives of the RTE Act, the framework of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) programme was revised to conform to the RTE norms. Under the SSA, the States/UTs have been assisted for construction of 47,488 new school buildings, 7,53,733 additional classrooms, 6,22,621 toilets and 40,161 drinking water facilities and 7.02 lakh additional teachers since 2009-10.
SSA has an inbuilt concurrent evaluation and monitoring system. It is reviewed twice every year by a Joint Review Mission (JRM) comprising independent experts and members of external funding agencies, covering all States by rotation. In addition 38 Monitoring Institutions assess implementation of the SSA Programme in the districts, and every district is assessed within a cycle of two years. An independent concurrent financial review is also undertaken to cover all States within two years. Educational data on outcomes is collected through a Unified District Implementation System of Education (UDISE) every year. The status of these evaluations and monitoring is placed in the public domain on the Ministry’s website.
Section 7 of the RTE Act provides that the Central and State Governments will have concurrent responsibility for providing funds for carrying out the provisions of the RTE Act. The Central Government has approved an outlay of Rs.2,31,233 crore for implementation of the combined RTE-SSA programme for the five year period of 2010-11 to 2014-15. The details of fund released to States towards implementation of the SSA during the period 2010-11 to 2014-15 are at Annexure-I.
The Government of India has also introduced several measures to facilitate the implementation of the SSA to meet the objectives of the RTE Act by sharing with the states (i) to improve the quality of learning outcomes, ‘Padhe Bharat Badhe Bharat’-a foundational programme to improve early reading and writing with comprehension and early mathematics and a focus on strengthening Science and Maths learning at the upper primary level; (ii) an exemplar on continuous comprehensive evaluation in elementary education developed by the NCERT; (iii) learning outcomes by class and stage of education brought out by the NCERT; (iv) conducting the 3rd round of National Achievement Surveys for Class III, V and VIII to track student learning outcomes; (v) bringing out guidelines against discrimination in schools and (vi) monitoring of States to set up decentralized grievance redressal systems under the RTE Act.
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