Three-day national seminar on RTE from February 1

Raipur, January 28, 2013

The Institute of Teachers’ Education at Pt Ravishankar Shukla University (RSU) will organise UGC-sponsored national seminar on Right to Education (RTE) –challenges and implementation at varsity premises from February 1-3.

The seminar is intended to initiate meaningful discussion over RTE as India has one third of world’s illiterate population, informed the coordinator of the organising committee for seminar Balram Prasad Jhariya. 

“Education in the Indian constitution is a concurrent issue and both Centre and states can legislate on it,” he said.

“The RTE promises free and compulsory education to every child in the age-group of 6-14. The Act says schools should be within a radius of 1-3 km from where the child lives. All government aided schools have to reserve 25% of their seats for students from economically weaker section (EWS). Similarly, the private schools should reserve 25% of their seats for EWS students from class I to VIII. However, this is not happening,” he added.

“Presently, the major challenge is to bring eight million out-of-school children into classes,” he said adding that substantial efforts were essential to eliminate disparities and ensure quality with equity.

The objectives of the seminar will be – to discuss challenges of RTE, to implement RTE successfully and interaction among renowned educationists, scholars and students under one roof. 

The sub-themes of the seminar will be – administrative problems in implementing RTE, academic problems in implementing RTE, merits, demerits and challenges of RTE, public private partnership in implementing RTE, universalisation of education, RTE and adolescence education programme, education for women’s equality, the schemes for pounding quality education in madarasas, national-means-cum-merit scholarship and information and technology in school.