New Delhi: Faced with teacher shortage and
other infrastructural hurdles, the government has said the
ambitious Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education
(RTE) Act will take at least three more years to show results.
"It (RTE Act) is going to take three years at least. This
is not something that is going to bear fruit tomorrow," HRD
Minister Kapil Sibal said.
Many hurdles have to be overcome for effective
implementation of the Act as the states don`t have the
necessary "wherewithal and infrastructure", he said.
The Act provides for free and compulsory education to all
children in the age group of 6-14 years.
Recently, some states had approached the ministry seeking
relaxation of teacher qualification norms under the Act due to
shortage of teacher training institutes.
Section 23(2) of the RTE Act provides a time frame of
five years for ensuring that all teachers in elementary school
are trained and within this period they need to acquire
professional qualification.
At a meeting of the state education ministers here on
June 8, it came into light that there are over seven lakh
untrained teachers in the country, the largest number of them
are in Bihar, followed by Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and West
Bengal.
Moreover, of the total number of untrained teachers,
around 5.48 lakh are at primary level and 2.25 lakh at upper
primary level.
Sibal, however, said the feedback received about the
willingness of the states to implement the Act has been "very
positive".
PTI
