Is India ready to implement RTE?

Separate toilets for boys and girls, safe and adequate drinking water, a kitchen where midday meals can be cooked, playgrounds and boundary walls are only some of the norms and standards, schools should adhere to, once the Right to Education (RTE) Act comes into being.

    Although most private schools already have these systems in place, it is institutions under government care which lack these facilities.
Are government schools equipped with the mandatory infrastructure proposed by the Act, and if not, will they be able to comply with all these criteria within the six-month period after the Act is implemented?

Going by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) report, 46% of schools do not have playgrounds, 33% lack compound walls, around 13% require drinking water facility, and over 27% require ramps and over 10% still don’t have libraries.  All this, when the state is ready to go ahead with the RTE from the next academic year.   “In a big city, every school has a playground.  But, schools in Bangalore cannot have playgrounds in the next 30 years, let alone the three-year period given by the RTE,” said AS Seetharamu, consultant, SSA.
    According to another consultant, there isn’t enough open space available to be given to schools for playgrounds. “There is no land to allot to schools. The only option is to have a common playground for different schools or cluster playgrounds. The government should find out the total land available and allot a playground to one school on one particular day and to another school the next day,” says the consultant.

NORMS TO FOLLOW
• The school building should have at least one classroom for every teacher and an office -cum-store-cum-head teacher’s room, barrier-free access, separate toilets for boys and girls, safe and adequate drinking water facility, kitchen facility, playground as well as a boundary wall
• A library in each school is must. With newspapers, magazines, books on all subjects-- including storybooks
• Play material, games and sports equipment for each class as required
• For Classes I to V, the minimum number of teachers should be two. Also, the student teacher ratio should not exceed 40:1. For Class VI to VIII, there should be at least one teacher each for Science and Mathematics, Social Studies and languages.
THE REPORT SAYS-

• 201 elementary schools do not have buildings.
•164 buildings are not fit for use.
•There are 1,98,415 classrooms in 45,677 elementary schools of the education department out of which 20.78% classrooms need minor repairs and 11.18% are waiting for major repair work
• The condition of classrooms which need minor repairs has not changed much, and the numbers of classrooms needing major repairs has increased
• 61 schools do not have drinking water facility, 43 schools don’t have separate toilets for boys and girls
• Supreme Court issued direction on Oct 18, 2011, to government schools across all states and Union Territories to build toilets and ensure availability of drinking water by end of November 20