Mumbai: Parents in Maharashtra could be in trouble, even go to jail if they don't send their children to school.
The Maharashtra government will soon table the Right to Education Bill that carries a provision that parents who fail to send their children to school could be imprisoned, said Education Minister Vasant Purke.
"There will be a provision for stern action and even imprisonment of the parent if the children are not sent to school," Purke said.
Even teachers and educational institutions will be held responsible for dropouts and poor enrolment as well as poor results, he told the legislative council on Tuesday.
He has also announced that board exams will be held for standard VII students and sex education given in ninth and 10th standards.
System blamed
While the state's ambition to get children to attend schools is laudable, Asha Rane of Pratham, an NGO working in the educational field, does not think this will work. "It is not right to penalise the parents since every parent, poor or rich, wants their children to go to school and get a good education.
"Neither can you blame the teachers. It is the whole system that has to be blamed," she says. "There are municipals, district and state-run as well as private schools in every nook and corner of the state but there is no learning taking place. Young children from standards I to IV stay in school but once they are promoted to higher classes and can think for themselves, they themselves get frustrated and drop out of school."
Drop out rates have however come down from 53 per cent for boys and 63 per cent for girls in 1980-81 to 13 per cent and 14 per cent respectively in 2002-03 for standard V. And for standard X students, 50 per cent of boys and 55 per cent girls dropped out of school in 2002-03 as compared to 74 per cent and 86 per cent respectively in 1980-81.
The state government runs 69,330 primary schools and 15,762 schools across the state which are attended by over 15 million students. The educational standards of state schools are reported to be low as compared to private institutions. A survey by Pratham on reading, writing and arithmetic skills of rural students showed how learning at school needed a big makeover.
By Pamela Raghunath, Correspondent