Standards falling despite RTE, says education panel head

New Delhi, October 26

Not impressed by the highly regarded Right to Education Act (RTE), former Cabinet Secretary and head of the committee on the new education policy TSR Subramanian said India had witnessed a “25 per cent drop in standards of education” after the RTE.

“The RTE has done enormous good but still there are gaps. One is ‘quality’. It talks of infrastructure quality but it requires tremendous attention and detailing.

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“But for me even more disturbing is that between 2010 and 2014, the year RTE came in, there is a clear 25 per cent drop in the standards of education,” Subramanian said.

Speaking at a panel discussion, which focused on emerging issues around safe and secure education of children, especially girls, he said giving quality educational environment should be “absolutely non-negotiable. I am not sure that this thought permeates within our policy-makers in India today. Learning is as natural for a child as eating and breathing.

“All the system has to provide is the environment and a teacher, a child will automatically learn. But we have converted it into a very complicated process,” Subramanian said. “My Safety My Education...My Right: Making Education Safe and Secure”, organised by Care India, called for a focused campaign and decisive action on the issue, if India is to meet the objectives stipulated under the Right to Education Act 2009.

Underlining the importance of girl education, Subramanian shared his experience while studying economic development and population control at Harvard in 1975 and said India needed to focus on education with each step taking towards development.

“Forty years ago when I was in Harvard, even in those days they taught us that education of a girl-child is the key to development and prosperity of the country. But we have not understood it till today. — PTI