Laws in India for the Protection of the Rights of Child
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LAWS IN INDIA FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE RIGHTS OF CHILD Childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day………..John Milton This quote of the great English poet aptly depicts the importance of a child in our lives. India too is a home to about 430 million children and as a consequence rights of children and their aspirations are of paramount importance in our march towards an inclusive and equitable society. Since independence, India has developed its own jurisprudence concerning children and the recognition of their rights which are evident through various legislations namely the Constitution of India, Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009, The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986, The Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956, Immoral Traffic Act, 1986, Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act,2000, and many more. This chapter is to analyse and understand the different aspects of children’s rights in the light of various legislations and judicial responses. 5.1 Education: “Children deprived of words become school dropouts; dropouts deprived of hope behave delinquently. Amateur censors blame delinquency on reading immoral books and magazines, when in fact, the inability to read anything is the basic trouble.” …Peter S. Jennison Education is itself a human right and it is through which one can realize the other human rights. It plays a vital role in empowering women and in the protection of children from exploitative labour as well as sexual exploitation. An individual often being educated and with an active mind has the capacity to wander freely and widely and can exercise the human rights and value human existence. A country like India which is known to be a home for a highest number of children in the world, there are about 43 crore children between the age group of 0-18 according to 2001 census and about 74 percent of child population live in rural areas and so providing free, compulsory and good quality education seems to be very important during this stage of their life. India is also a home for the one third world’s illiterate population. Since its independence and during the drafting of the Indian Constitution, India has made a conscious effort to give children the right to free and compulsory education as a fundamental right. However at that time it could not succeed in its efforts. But the Constitution of India has given it a place under Article 45 Directive Principles of state policy which provides that “the state shall endeavour to provide 127 within a period of ten years from the commencement of this constitution for free and compulsory education for all the children until they complete the age of 14 years”. Though it was not a part of the Fundamental rights of the constitution the constitutional fathers meant that the basic education should be given to children between 6-14 years of age and it directs the state government to endeavour to provide children free and compulsory education to all children until they complete 14 years of age. Under the Chairmanship of Kothari India for the first time constituted a commission on education to create an Indian education system on the lines of Common school system and published its first commission report on education during 1964-66 called Kothari Commission which stated that “we should strive to allocate the largest proportion of gross national product (GNP) possible for educational development”. The Commission proposed to make primary education as a goal of the country and also recommended government to increase 6% of the gross national product (GNP) on education for the development of education in the country in the next 20 years by 1985-86. It was reiterated through National Policy on Education (1986) whose priority was the Universalisation of Elementary Education and it recommended ensuring that the free and compulsory and good quality education to be provided for all children upto the age of 14 years of age before the 21st century and it was revised 1992 In the world Conference on Education for All at Jomtien in Thailand in 1990, 155 countries including India took a pledge to ensure to provide education for all by the year 2000. It has certain goals to be followed by the signatory countries in which India didn’t progress much. According to the UNESCO review report on India’s position in 1998 whose key objectives were to care for early education of children between age group of 0-6 years and their development spreading awareness about the elementary education for all, encourage youngsters to learn reduce illiteracy specially female literacy, skill development and improving the quality of life. Again in April 2000, World Education Forum was held in Dakar (Senegal) where 180 out of 1993 signatories participated in the Forum. The Dakar framework agreed right of education as a basic right realizing the people from low economic status and disadvantaged group were bereft of this basic education. India among 180 countries took pledge that by 2015 education would be made available for everyone 128 In India the supreme court in the Unnikrishnan, J.P. Vs State of Andhra Pradesh1judgement affirmed that Part III and Part IV of the constitution of India is not only supplementing and complimenting each other mutually but are also inter related to each other. It is a path breaking judgement in the history of education which gave the status of fundamental right to free and compulsory education to all the children between the age of 6-14 years or until the completion of elementary education and accepted and approved the right to education as fundamental right of all children. In its continuing effort in providing elementary education to children across the country. After the 86th constitutional Amendment in 2002 the Parliament passed a landmark legislation called the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act or widely known as right to Education Act, 2009 which included the Article 21A2 in the Indian constitution and thus making education a fundamental right. The Act came into force in the whole of India except Jammu and Kashmir from 1st April 2010. The main objective of the Act is to provide free and compulsory education to all the children between the age group 6-14 years of age until they complete their elementary education. The idea is to bring children to school by providing free education and increase the enrolment rate, reduce dropouts and increase the literacy rate in the country 5.1.1 The Right to Education Act, 2009 The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE), 2009 was enacted in the year 2009 and came into force with effect from 1st April, 2010 across the country except the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Section 2(c) defined the child as a male or female child between the age of 6-14 years. Section 2(f) defined the term elementary education as the education from class 1-8. The salient features of the Right of Children for free and compulsory Education Act are 1) Free and compulsory education to all the children of India between the age group of 6 to 14 years Section 8(a)(i)(ii) 2) Section 4 provides special provision for children not admitted to or who have not completed the elementary education 3) Section 8 provides for the infrastructure including school building, teaching staff and learning materials, good quality education, ensure neighbourhood schools, training facilities for teachers etc 129 4) Section 5 provides right to transfer to other schools from a school where there is no provision for completion of elementary education to any government and government aided schools and head teacher or in charge shall issue the transfer certificate immediately and no child will be denied admission on ground of delayed production of the transfer certificate 5) No child shall be held back, expelled or required to pass a board examination until completion of elementary education (S.16) 6) S.14(2) provides that no child shall be denied admission in a school of absence of age proof 7) Section 13 provides that no capitation fee and no screening procedure to any child 8) Section 17 prohibits corporal punishment to children 9) Section 21 provides for the constitution of school management committees in every school except unaided private schools 10) Section 23 provides the minimum qualification for teachers and Section 23(2) provides relaxation of minimum qualification for appointment of a teachers in for a period not exceeding five years case the state does not have adequate institutions offering courses or training in teacher education or teachers possessing minimum qualification 11) Section 24 provides the duties of the teachers towards education of the students and towards maintaining the punctuality and regularity in attending schools 12) Section 25 provides the pupil-teacher ratio 13) Section 27 provides that no teacher shall be deployed for any non-education purposes other than the duties relating to elections, population census, disaster relief etc 14) Section 28 provides that no teacher shall engage in private tuitions or teaching 15) Section 29 provides the curriculum and the evaluation procedure for elementary education to be laid down by the academic authority of the appropriate government Suggestions and recommendations 1) Children between 3 and 6 years of age which is indeed the most crucial stage in a child’s life and the children between 15 to 18 years old are out of the purview of the RTE where they find themselves with little chance of completing their education 130 if they cannot pay for it.