Quantity, quality and equality required to ensure Right to Education: Vice-President Hamid Ansari

New Delhi: Vice President Mohammed Hamid Ansari on Monday said quantity, quality and equality are the three sides of the triangle required to ensure Right to Education.

Vice President Ansari, who was addressing the National Stocktaking Convention being organized by the Right to Education Forum here, said the decline in state funding in the key social sector programmes, including education, is of particular concern.

He said the Right to Education Act remains a remarkable achievement, which provides access, equity and inclusion for all children, despite the shortcomings in its implementation.

The Vice President said the Right to Education Act has shown promising developments in the last six years.

He further said that a critical appraisal of the functioning of the Right to Education reveals that large gaps exist in its implementation including the quality of education being provided; the high number of drop-outs and out of school children and the absence of equity in education.

The Vice President said that the experience gained in operating the RTE for the past six years should inform the correctives to reduce the gaps - monitoring the implementation of the Act needs to be taken more seriously.

"Vibrant partnerships among the departments and organizations concerned with children; acceleration of poverty reduction programmes of the Rural Development and ensuring that the state governments get the Panchayati Raj institutions appropriately involved," he added.