Right to education for preschool

According to a recent news item, the education ministry is looking to bring preschool education under the ambit of Right to Education Act. This may be a good suggestion but the logistical and financial pressures of bringing about four crore children under the RTE is a cause of concern. It is however argued that bringing the early years of education under the free and compulsory education will improve the condition of early childhood education. The Prime Minister has said that a final decision on increasing the ambit of the RTE will be taken by the end of July. The inclusion of children between the ages of four and six will mean reworking the ambit of the ministry of women and child development which administers integrated child development schemes targeting children below the age of six.

While all said and done the RTE being applied to tiny tots is a good idea, the practicality of how it will be applied is under question. Do we have the infrastructure to send so many children to school? The National Advisory council is of the view that the Prime Minister’s anganwadi scheme should cover children up to the age of four.  Simultaneously the planning commission’s sub group on elementary education is trying to widen the reach of the Right to Education Act to include children between the age of four and six years. The advantage of bringing preschool children under the ambit of the Right to Education Act is more and more children will start learning and if they go to school early elementary education will be naturally covered though wherefore will the infrastructure come for such a herculean task is indeed something to be pondered over. The sub group of the Central advisory board of education, which is examining the possibility of extending the free and compulsory education law to cover secondary education, will be asked to look into the inclusion of preschool learning. In its present form the RTE covers children from classes 1 to 8.  The biggest impediment to including preschool children under the RTE is the logistical and financial pressure it will entail. The move will mean moving four crore children to the free and compulsory education recipients. It will involve setting up at least ten lakh classrooms and hiring ten lakh trained nursery teachers.

An approximate estimate suggests that it will cost at least two lakh per classroom to immediately implement the plan. There will also be other recurring costs such as teachers, salaries and learning materials.  The biggest cause of concern however would be to find trained nursery teachers or to train so many teachers to teach. Even if children are brought under the right to education act what guarantee is there that those children will attend the schools and even if the schools are run what guarantee is there that the children will have qualified teachers who teach them. There is also apprehension about bringing a new system of convergence with the health sector that the growth monitoring component of the integrated child development is not lost.