ISSUES AND CHALLENGES IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF RIGHT TO EDUCATION ACT 2009

Abstract

Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE Act) 2009 marks a historic moment for the children of India. Every child ages between 6 to 14 years has the right to free and compulsory education. One of the vital objectives of the Act is to bring excellence in education through the medium of reaching unreached section of the society. India became one of the 135 countries in the world to make education as fundamental right of each and every child. Since RTE Act is a new initiative, it is important to develop comprehensive understanding about it from the time it was implemented. The objective of this review article is to map studies across states of India and across the Departments in Universities. The second objective was to analyze the aspects that have been focused in the studies. All the Ph.D. thesis published on the RTE Act 2009 on the Shodhganga were accessed. The literature review indicated that most of the studies have been conducted under Department of Education. The major aspects covered under the studies were: awareness about the Act, perception stakeholders about the Act, assessment of the Act, socio-legal aspects of the Act, infrastructure facilities under the Act, quality intervention of the Act and social inclusion through the Act. It being the initial years of the implementation of the Act, most of the studies have been about awareness and facilities. With the completion of ten years of implementation of Act, feedback from researches on case studies, longitudinal studies and comparative studies across States of India would prove to be significant. Across all the departments of universities, it had been found that most of the department seems to be focused in input level of the Act. The RTE Act has met with success in achieving some of the goals with which it started in the year 2010. Many of the states have been successful in ensuring effective implementation of RTE. Besides the success of RTE Act, the present study has found gaps in doctoral studies conducted on elementary education after its implementation.