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A significant step

THE GRANT OF Presidential assent for the 93rd Constitutional Amendment that makes free and compulsory primary education a Fundamental Right for all children marks a significant step in the country's aim to achieve `Education for All'. The Bill may have taken five years to become law for many reasons. It may suffer many a lacuna. But the fact is the amendment holds out a Constitutional guarantee for providing free education up to high school to all its 190 million young and growing minds between 6 and 14. More significantly, the new law will seek to bring into the educational mainstream 35 million boys and girls who are yet to be covered by formal schooling systems.

The Amendment to Article 21 of the Constitution says that the "Government shall provide free and compulsory education to all children from the age of six to 14 in such a manner as the State may by law determine... " No longer is the promise of achieving universal primary education an unenforceable Constitutional Directive. Now there is scope for judicial intervention to provide educational infrastructure to all Indian children up to the high school level. It also seeks to compel parents to send their children to school by including it as a Fundamental Duty (Article 51 A); and amends Article 45 of the Constitution to make the state "endeavour to provide early childhood care and education for all children until they complete six years of age". The Minister for Human Resource Development, Murli Manohar Joshi, has rightly called the passing of the Bill in the Lok Sabha the "dawn of the second Revolution in the Chapter of Citizens Rights" and announced that laws will also be made to operationalise the Fundamental Right.

Laudable the new law might be. But the Constitutional amendment alone may not be able to address the larger social questions and the Preambular promises of providing social, economic and political justice for all. For instance, the law does not define the word "free". Today, even the poorest of parents spend money to buy books, uniforms and pay examination fees for their children. The role of private educators in making primary education free and compulsory also remains undefined. The Opposition parties have already raised in Parliament the fact that no funds were allotted in this year's budget to operationalise the law. But then, the Government can always point to the funds it has allotted under the `Education for All movement' as its financial commitment. While the amendment makes it a Fundamental Duty for every parent to send his or her wards to school, there are genuine apprehensions that those who fail to do it may face prosecution. Fears about the random use of the provision against the poor and the depressed are not unfounded. Early childhood care and education is only a Directive Principle and not a Fundamental Right — meaning the educational growth of children from 0-6 years is not guaranteed.

Thus the Amendment alone is not enough. Every State, especially those with poor literacy and dropout records, needs incentives to frame laws to extend the Constitutional guarantee and provide free, compulsory, quality, equitable school and early childhood care and education up to the higher secondary level. Gender injustice and adult illiteracy are problems that need legal instrumentalities for lasting solutions. The States have no choice but to take monumental efforts for universalising enrolment and retaining each student in school, without dropping out, till the age of 14. Otherwise, India's economic growth will face a frightful threat from a large seething mass of young people who remain illiterate, specifically due to lack of state effort. This spectre should goad administrators and lawmakers into taking the Education for All campaign to its highestpossible pitch. Only then can the one billion population of India match the demands of a knowledge-powered 21st century.

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