Sabotaging the Right to Education

Anil Sadgopal came up with an interesting piece in Tehelka (14 June 2008) titled "C For Commerce". It clearly showed how a high-minded initiative by the Judiciary is being methodically sabotaged by the Executive.

The key events -

• 1993 - Supreme Court's historic Unnikrishnan judgment gave all children up to 14 years of age a Fundamental Right to Education. The judgment linked Fundamental Right to Life (Article 21) of the Constitution with the Directive in Article 45 to provide Free and Compulsory Education to children 0-14.

• 2002 - After dilly-dallying and procrastinating for ten years the 86th Constitutional Amendment Act is introduced. This introduced a new Article (21A) which said that "compulsory education shall be provided in such manner as the State may, by law, determine".

Having taken the steam out of the SC judgment, the current Draft Right to Education (RTE) Bill, 2008, is destines to become another toothless Act.