#Democracy and what it really should enable

We celebrate the surpassing of the record of #PanditNehru by #Modiji in terms of the number of days of remaining Elected Prime Minister for the longest unbroken stint.

Whether then or now, we are still grappling with the basic needs of a decent democracy.  Then we had an excuse of having been just released from the clutches of a blood sucking foreign regime. The present rulers are in place for the past 12 years.  Even if the excuse is that the previous regimes were blood sucking in respect of corruption, a decade and more should have sufficed to concentrate on the basic needs.

In the previous blog, #Cockroaches Vs Bandicoots the need for a real Free and Compulsory education as envisaged in Article 21A of the Constitution was discussed.

In this regard, it is to be seen that the Kerala Law Reforms Commission, 2008 prescribed a Bill for implementation of 'Free and Compulsory Education in Kerala'. None other than Justice V.R.Krishna Iyer was the Chairman of the Commission. The Commission had made various recommendations on a myriad subjects.

The first one is pertaining to the above issue. For ease of reference, some of the vital provisions of the proposed bill are extracted below:


2. Definitions.— In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,—

(a) “Child” means a Child who attained the age of six years at the beginning of an academic year.

(b) “Government School” means School run by Government.

(c) “Aided School” means a Private School that is recognized and is receiving aid from the Government.

(d) “Recognized School” means a Private School recognized by the Government.

(e) “Free Education” means freedom for the child and his parent or guardian from liability to,—

(i) Pay any fee or charges to the School where the child or ward is studying or to an examining body or any external body providing any service through the School.

(ii) Incur expenditure for textbooks, notes books, and other study materials and for uniforms.

(iii) Incur expenditure towards bus fare, but limited to BPL families alone.

(f) “Local authority” means a Panchayat at any level constituted under Section 4 of the Kerala Panchayat Raj Act, 1994 (13 of 1994) or a Municipality constituted under Section 4 of the Kerala Municipality Act, 1994 (20 of 1994).

(g) “Free Education Fund” means the Fund constituted under Section 7.

(h) “Education Committee” means the Committee constituted under subsection (2) of Section 8.

(i) “Below Poverty Line Family” means the families so published by the Local Authority as per the provisions of the Act, ——

(j) “Prescribed” means prescribed by rules.

3. Right to Education.— The Government shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six and fourteen years.

4. Responsibility of the parent or guardian.— It shall be the duty of every parent or guardian of a child to enroll his child or ward in a school and facilitate his completion of education.

5. Category of Schools.— For the purposes of this Act, schools in the State are classified as category 1, 2 and 3 as follows, namely:—

Category 1. Government School Category 

                2. Aided School Category 

                3. Recognised School.


6. Responsibility of Schools to provide free and compulsory education.— (1) In Category 1 Schools, all the expenses for free education shall be met directly by the Government.

(2) In category 2 and 3 Schools, all the expenses for free education shall be met by school management in the first instance and reimbursed by the local authority of the area where the school is situated, in such manner as may be prescribed:

Provided that the local authority may make available sufficient funds in advance to the school management to meet the expenses for providing free education to the students subject to settlement of the final accounts annually.

(3) No child shall be denied admission to any educational institution within the State for any course or class including plus 1 and plus 2 and no fee shall be levied for admission or tuition. Any violation of the provision shall be liable to fine for the first fault and if repeated for the second time the recognition of the institution shall be liable to be cancelled. The Director of Public Instruction may issue any direction to the head of any education institution under public or private management if otherwise the applicant for admission is duly qualified without reference to any communal reservation or religious consideration.

(4) Any applicant if refused admission or the ground of non-availability of seats or non-payment of admission or capitation fee or communal minority consideration may move the District having jurisdiction over the School for an order directing admission if otherwise qualified.

7. Constitution of Free Education Fund.— (1) Government shall constitute a fund by name “Free Education Fund” to meet the expenditure of the free education of the children.

(2) The following amount shall be credited to the Free Education Fund constituted under Sub-section (1), namely:—

(a) Grant from Government.

(b) Two per cent additional building tax collected by the local authority under Section 8 of this Act.

(c) Any donations to the fund made by any voluntary organizations, charitable societies, companies or other public sector undertakings.

(d) Donation from any individual.

(3) Government while preparing the annual demand for grants, due consideration shall be given for providing sufficient fund to the Free Education Fund.

8. Additional Building Tax.—(1) Local Authority shall collect two percent additional building tax from the owner whose annual building tax exceeds Five hundred rupees.

(2) The amount collected by the local authority shall be credited to the Free Education Fund.

9. Responsibility of the Local Authority.— (1) Subject to the responsibility of the Government; Local Authority shall be primarily responsible for the imparting of free and compulsory education to all the children within the local area.

(2) For imparting free and compulsory education, the local authority may constitute a committee by name ‘Educational Committee’ with the following members, namely:—

(a) Chairman/ President of the Local Authority.

(b) Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Local Authority.

(c) Headmaster of two Schools within the Local Authority.

(d) PTA President of two Schools in the Local Authority.

(3) One of the Commissioner / Secretary of the Local Authority shall be designated as the convener of the Committee.

(4) The Committee shall have a record of all children in its area who are in the age group of 1-14.

(5) The Committee shall ensure that every child in the age group of 6-14 years residing within its jurisdiction is enrolled in the School and is enabled to complete the education upto the 10th standard.

(6) The Committee shall prepare an estimate for free education of all the children in its area in September for the next academic year.

(7) The estimate prepared by the Committee shall be sent to Government before 30th November.

10. Admission of students below poverty line.— (1) Every category of schools shall admit in all classes twenty five percent of its total strength, students belonging to families Below Poverty Line.

(2) In the academic year after the commencement of this Act, twenty five percent of the admission to the lowest classes in a school shall be from the families Below Poverty Line. This shall be extended to the higher classes in the subsequent years.

(3) If sufficient number of student are not available from the Below Poverty Line families, those seats may be filled up by other students.

11. Payment of due salary and prohibition of donation. — (1) No manager or other authority in management of any school whether aided or unaided shall receive or cause to be received any amount from any student at the time of admission or at any time either as donation or in any other manner.

(2) No manager or any other authority in management of any school whether aided or unaided shall receive or cause to be received any amount from any teachers and other staff appointed in the school at the time of appointment or at any time while in service either as donation or in any other manner.

(3) Manager or any other authority in management of the school aided or unaided shall pay monthly salary to the teachers and other staff appointed in the school in accordance with the scale of pay fixed by the Government for such teachers and staff working in Government school without making any deduction or diminution on any account whatsoever. A mere consent of the teacher or other staff for deduction of amounts from the salary may not be a legal justification for paying any lesser amount as salary if a dispute arises as to whether full salary as prescribed by the Government was paid to the teacher or not.

(4) Violation of any of the provisions in sub-sections 1 to 3 above shall be an offence punishable, with imprisonment for a term of 6 months and a fine of fifty thousand rupees or with both.

But what the Kerala Government enacted as an Act did not really follow the above prescription.

What was however proposed in the above bill was similar to what was written in the earlier blog - i.e., the State should sponsor the entire burden of the free education.

Once the State comes to understand the real burden of the said education, then alone can fleecing at the level of schools be stopped.

Once the real cost of bringing up children is understood, then persons will not mindlessly ask people to produce more children for a mere trifling of ₹ 30,000/- or ₹ 40,000/-

In any democracy, right to life is to be protected.  Education to the level of survival and medical facilities to protect one's life are parts of this fundamental right.

Unless these are achieved, we cannot really be proud of ourselves, as a democracy.

#Cockroaches Vs bandicoots

 

Can #Cockroaches beat bandicoots

 The present movement in the name of #Cockroaches was triggered by an observation of the Hon’ble CJI of India.

The movement has presently occupied the space pertaining to large scale irregularity seen and perceived in the field of education in India, particularly school education and the NEET examination.

 It is heartening to see various interviews of Master #SarthakSidhant the 17-year-old student who investigated CBSE's public procurement records and even deposed before a Parliamentary Committee.

While youngsters, educationists and parents alike are appalled about the exposures, there remains a fundamental issue which has not got public attention.

Article 21A was added to the Indian Constitution by the Eighty-Sixth Constitutional Amendment Act, 2002.

It reads as below:

“21A. Right to education :

The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years in such manner as the State may, by law, determine.”

It officially came into force on December 12, 2002, establishing the Right to Education as a Fundamental Right for all children between the ages of 6 and 14. This provision was later operationalized with the enactment of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009

When parents of a particular private school in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, falling under the Matriculation Board, protested against steep hike in school fees in the year 2009-10 and escalated the matter by way of a Writ Petition in the Hon’ble High Court of Madras on the grounds of the above Article 21 A, the State Government of Tamil Nadu gave an undertaking before the Hon’ble Court to regulate the fees in the private schools under an Act of the Legislature.

Accordingly the Tamil Nadu Schools (Regulation of Collection of Fee) Act, 2009 was enacted.  It laid down the method of determining the fees in Private Schools in the state, which had been considered out of bounds for the Legislature in view of a Supreme Court Judgement in the TMA Pai case where it had been held that due to the difference in infrastructure and salary structure differing between schools, it will not be proper for a uniform fee structure to be prescribed for private schools.

The Tamil Nadu Schools (Regulation of Collection of Fee) Act, 2009 overcame the above issue by prescribing that fees for each school will be determined by the Fee Determination Committee based on the data pertaining to each school submitted by the schools and therefore will not be uniform but will be commensurate to the expenditure of each school.

This was a mile stone legislation in the entire country. 

Accordingly when the Committee was constituted under the Act and Schools were required to submit their expenditure data, the school management committee Association challenged the legislation in the Hon’ble High Court of Madras and upon losing it there went to the Hon’ble Supreme Court.  By the time there also they lost, the last date for submission of their records before the Committee (then Justice Govindarajan Committee) was over and the Committee determined the fees based on the records produced before them.

The schools which had refused to produce their records found that the fees determined for them was far lesser than what they were already collecting and again went to the Hon’ble High Court where a stay was granted by a Single Judge to the fee determination by the Justice Govindarajan Committee.

When it was not found that the State Government was not immediately coming to the defence of the Committee, Justice Govindarajan resigned and there was a situation where there was no ‘determined fees’ and the Single Judge had left it to the ‘Conscience of the Schools’.

When the Parents representatives who had wanted to intervene in the proceedings before the Hon’ble Single Judge had not been allowed to do so approached the Division Bench and got an order in their favour, the State Government also filed an appeal against the Single Judge Order.

The Committee was reconstituted under Justice Singaravelan and schools which had not submitted their records were allowed to submit them within another fixed date and accordingly the determination was concluded.

But after these, most of the schools started going out of the Matriculation Board and getting enrolled under the CBSE, to avoid the fee determination by the above Committee under the Tamil Nadu Government.

The Hon’ble Supreme Court also through their interim order in 2016 upheld that the fee determination by the Committee appointed under the Tamil Nadu Act will not be applicable to CBSE schools. Paper report

In this regard, the specific provisions of the Act of the Tamil Nadu Government are as below:

1. (1) This Act may be called the Tamil Nadu Schools (Regulation of Collection of Fee) Act, 2009. (2) It extends to the whole of the State of Tamil Nadu.

2. In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,—

(j) “private school” means any pre-primary school, primary school, middle school, high school or higher secondary school, established and administered or maintained by any person or body of persons and recognized or approved by the competent authority under any law or code of regulation for the time being in force, but does not include,—

(i) an aided school;

(ii) a school established and administered or maintained by the Central Government or the State Government or any local authority;

(iii) a school giving, providing or imparting religious instruction alone but not any other instructions;

 

7. (1) The powers and functions of the committee shall be,—

(a) to determine the fee to be collected by private schools;

(b) to hear complaints with regard to collection of fee in excess of the fee determined by it or fixed by the Government, as the case may be. If the committee, after obtaining the evidence and explanation from the management of the private school or aided school concerned or from the Government school, comes to the conclusion that the private school or the Government school or aided school has collected fee in excess of the fee determined by the committee or fixed by the Government, as the case may be, it shall recommend to the appropriate competent authority for the cancellation of the recognition or approval, as the case may be, of the private school or aided school or for any other course of action as it deems fit in respect of the private school or Government school or aided school.

(2) The committee shall have power to,—

(i) require each private school to place before the committee the proposed fee structure of such school with all relevant documents and books of accounts for scrutiny within such date as may be specified by the committee;

(ii) verify whether the fee proposed by the private school is justified and it does not amount to profiteering or charging of exorbitant fee;

(iii) approve the fee structure or determine some other fee which can be charged by the private school.

(3) The Committee shall have power to,—

(i) verify whether the fee collected by the School affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education commensurate with the facilities provided by the school;

(ii) to hear complaints with regard to collection of excess fee by a school affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education; and

(iii) to recommend to the Central Board of Secondary Education for disaffiliation of the school, if it comes to a conclusion that the school has collected excess fee.

 

It is also pertinent to see what the Rules pertaining to CBSE school fees says.

Specific provisions are as below:

7.3 Fees shall be charged under the heads prescribed by the Department of Education of the State/UTs.

7.6 The acts and regulations of the Central and State/UT Governments enacted/framed in connection with regulation of fee in respected of the various categories of the schools situated in the state will be applicable to the school affiliated with CBSE also.

However, till date the State Government has not been determining the fees for CBSE and other Boards other than Matriculation board and hence, by the schools succeeding in coming out of the Matriculation Board have succeeded in having their own fees.

When parents of these CBSE schools tried to take up the matter with the State Government, the State Government directed all schools including CBSE and other boards to display fees on the notice Board. Paper report.  

The above is only for display of the fees.  However, even that was objected to by the managements of the Private Schools and taken to the Hon’ble High Court of Madras.  The Hon’ble High Court however refused to stay the directions of the State Government in this regard. Paper report.

Yet, the question of fixing the fees in CBSE Schools in Tamil Nadu by the Government has not been achieved. 

This being the case in a state where there is a legislation for this purpose, in respect of other States and Union Territories, it is still a far cry.

In the absence of this fundamental legislation, the very purpose of Article 21 A of the Constitution continues to be a Mirage.

At the time of filing the Writ Petition before the Hon’ble High Court by the Parents Association, I had asked the Sr. Advocate Shri. K.M. Vijayan as to whether the Constitutional provision will not apply only the Government run schools.

He said ‘the Constitution does not discriminate between Private and Public Schools’.

His vision had subsequently been proved to be right by the commitment of the Government to bring in a legislation.

But it has fallen short by not taking care of another segment of the Private Schools.

Thereafter, if the real spirit of the Article 21 A of free education is to be achieved, the State (whether Union or State of UT) should either take over all Schools for imparting education of children from the age of 6 to 14 OR reimburse to their parents, whatever fees is being paid for such students.

Only then the Right to Education as per the Constitution brought in by the amendment in 2002 will be fulfilled.

It is a moot question whether #Cockroaches can win a battle against bandicoots.

They require divine blessings.