Gujarat seeks 100% allocation for fulfillment of RTE Act

Emphasizing for greater resources for implementation of RTE Act., Gujarat Government today urged the Government of India to create only such legislative rights that are backed up by the provision of 100% financial contribution by GoI towards the fulfillment of that right. The approach of GoI to legislate where the major financial burden falls on the State Government is counter- productive.

While speaking at the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) meeting held here, Minister of State for Higher and Technical Education, Smt. Vasuben Trivedi said that enacting the Act and not giving enough resources to the States, is like throwing the baby in the bath water. Universalisation of secondary education is the need of the hour now. However whether legal measures alone would solve the problems is a matter for debate, she added.

Promoting the Higher Education in the State, Vocational, Technical Professional Courses and Internship Schemes have been made part of the curriculum in Choice-Based Credit System in Universities to increase students’ employability. Active Learning Methodologies too have been introduced as part of the reforms.

Addressing the conference, Smt. Vasuben Trivedi stated that Gujarat Government supports the idea of legislating a separate law to prohibit unfair practices in school education and such a bill should take care of the various unfair practices currently pursued by private schools such as taking fees indirectly in different forms, increasing fees without prior notice, not issuing receipts for fees collected, not disclosing the accounts of the institutions etc. Clear provision should be made that accounts of all the schools should be put in the public domain and the fee structure of the school should be justified in terms of their actual expenditure on various items.

Gujarat Minister also appraised that as part of its Golden Jubilee celebration in the last year, Government of Gujarat had systematically launched a campaign called “Vanche Gujarat” [Read Gujarat] to promote reading habit among students and others, which met with a lot of success. Various training camps and book reading competitions were organized by Government for students of schools as well as colleges. More than 15 lacs students, from 25000 schools and colleges, read 60 lacs books. She also added that the State Government has already done some work recently in National Vocational Education Qualification Framework.

Shri Hasmukh Adhia, Principal Secretary (Education) also attended the meeting.