The Good and the Bad
In an initiative to provide free and compulsory education
to everyone, under the Right to Education Act, the government passed a bill
making it compulsory for private schools reserve 25 % of the total seats for underprivileged
sections of the society. As supposed, this decision was challenged by the
private schools in the Supreme Court of India, whose decision came on the 13th
April, 2012. Considering the arguments of
both the pro and con parties the Supreme Court decided that the decision was in
favor of the nation and hence making it a mandate for private schools all round
the nation to give 25% of its seats to the underprivileged.
India being a multi-lingual, multi- colored and
multi-layered society, naturally, had mixed responses over the decision. The
debate had more or less the same arguments that the debate two decades back,
when the Mandal Commission was passed had.
It all came to equality and opportunity.
Here in this post we look at what is good and what is bad
in this decision with an objective frame of mind.
The
Good Part
This move of reserving seats will finally, to some
extent, accomplish the objective of the Right to Education Act. When the
well-off people of the society have shed- off the Government run schools,
creating a gap between govt. school and private school students this move
bridges the gap. There a feeling of superiority and inferiority among the
students due to this culture of schooling. Now when the children of different
classes, right from the beginning, would sit together, play together and eat
together they would understand that there is no gap between rich and poor. Here
the underprivileged students would get to compete with the resourceful students
to get ready for the competitive life ahead. Moreover, getting the same
facilities they all would grow building better Indians.
The
Bad Part
This is completely true that the govt. run schools have
failed badly in providing the kind of education they needed to. And in this
circumstance instead of mending their mistakes they are putting it on the
private schools. In the first look it seems that this decision would bridge the
gap between rich and poor but in the reality it would actually widen it. Under
this scheme the State Govt. would provide the money required to teach students
of the reserved quota. This money would be equivalent to the fee of each child
in a school or the per student expenditure of the state government, whichever
is less. Now the schools which charge heavily will certainly get lesser subsidy
from the Govt. and this loss of the school would have to be borne by the well-off
students. This would mean that one would study for many and one for a penny.
This would act as the basis of discrimination and humiliation.
Another aspect is that the reserved category students
would not be able to bear cost of overhead expenses such as uniforms or books
and copies.
