The students of CSIM, Bangalore, are organizing “Learn your way”, an awareness campaign for encouraging Open Schooling in Bangalore. This is an event to sensitize parents, teachers, children and adolescents towards the open schooling concept for a stress free education.
For years now, it has been widely recognized that the mainstream education system in our country is producing more dropouts every year than successful candidates, for various reasons. The recent spate of student suicides in the metro cities has jolted us and made us painfully aware that it is time for the citizens to wake up and act.
And there do exist solutions to these problems. One of them is a parallel system, fully recognized by the Government of India, which caters to the varying levels of intelligence and needs of a child. Through the National Open Schooling system, the largest system of alternate education anywhere in the world, a child can complete education at his/her own pace, with subjects of his/her own choice.
Our objective is to create awareness about the existence of this alternate schooling system, so that our children who are unable to cope with mainstream education system know there is no hope lost – just because they have to drop out of school, does not mean that they have to drop out of life.
We are planning an orchestrated campaign with events like street plays and rallies, culminating in seminars, radio shows and other media events, all designed to promote this system of alternate education.
We request your whole-hearted support for this noble cause. You may contribute in terms of volunteer support and sponsorships and in any other way which will endorse our view that open schooling is a means to open minds and hearts.
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Will Right to education bill pave way for open schooling
Quick Reference Guide - RTE
Q: Why is the RTE Act significant
The passing of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009 gives every child the right to a quality elementary education
Q: What are its main features
All children aged 6-14 shall have the right to free and compulsory elementary education at a neighbourhood school.
No direct (school fees) or indirect cost uniforms,textbooks,mid-day meals,transportation) need be borne by the child or parents to obtain elementary education.
The govt will provide schooling free of-cost until a childs elementary education is completed.
All schools must comply with certain infrastructure and teacher norms. Two trained teachers will be provided for every 60 students at the primary level
Q: How will it be monitored
Schools shall constitute School Management Committees comprising local officials,parents,guardians and teachers.The SMCs will monitor utilization of govt grants and the school environment.RTE mandates inclusion of 50% women and parents of children from disadvantaged groups in SMCs
Some Facts and Figures that were flashed in leading dailies while reporting about RTE
There are seventy million school going children in India not attending schools.
There are 13 million engaged in sum form of work and 2 million works engaged in domestic work.
There are aproximaletly about 92 Lakh school children in the country.
There are currently 57 lakh teachers at the primary and upper primary levels, of which 5.23 lakh posts remain vacant.
As per the RTE the Teacher: Pupil ration is 1:30
Primary school has to be established less than 1 kms from their neighbourhood
For children of class 6 – 8 the school should be less than 3 kms from their neighbourhood
An excerpt from a leading Daily
“Although enrollment in elementary classes has increased tremendously in recent years,driven by the thirst for education as well as the incentive of mid day meals,there are still about 8.1 million children of school going age that remain out of school.But the bigger and the more crucial problem is that of drop outs.
About 50% of all those who enroll in primary stages drop out by class 8, according to latest official figures.
That is a jaw dropping number about 90 million.For the right to education to really mean anything,these children have to be kept in school at least till they reach the age of 14 years,which is the outer limit for coverage under the law.”
Source: District Information System for Education (DISE)
click here for the RTE bill from PRS.
Can open schooling by National Institute of Open schooling taken as a tool/method to achieve the objective of RTE. But a lot of questions have been raised about open schooling, is the quality of education imparted by open schooling equivalent to that of today's mainstream schools. Do we need a larger framewrok within RTE to encourage open schooling.
Vinod
RTE - Will it work well ?
Vinod - thanks, the gist from RTE is very well summarized above.
The intentions are excellent, no doubt, but my question is - Will the funds allocated for such education for the very large number of poor pupils be utilised efficiently for the purpose that it is intended, or will it seed more scam/s similar to PDS system & almost all other such philanthropic efforts?
The questions that you raise, such as: "Is the quality of education imparted by open schooling equivalent to that of today's mainstream schools?" & "Do we need a larger framewrok within RTE to encourage open schooling?" are relevant no doubt, but the question about how much reaches the poor & needy is a far more serious question that we need to concentrate fully on.
This is an area that we have not come to terms at all & have been struggling, literally. If somehow, we discover & find methods to erradicate misuse & corruption out from such benevolent deeds, we could have all of the very poor progress upwards very fast, & perhaps be the workshop for the whole world since labor is so much in abundance & so very cheap in India!
RTE - The key issues
Open-schooling more relevant now that ever before
Thought-provoking posts. The RTE addresses primary-education (upto 14), while the most-stressed out and suicidal cases are from those beyond RTE's age scope.
Not all children out of the RTE (>14yrs) will cope well with the demands of secondary education - some may find certain subjects challenging. Hence, the alternative way of learning at his/her own pace, with subjects of his/her own choice makes the idea of open-schooling most relevant now that ever before.