In his article “A new school bell rings over India” (April 19), Ajit Balakrishnan explores how the Right to Education (RTE) Act aims to revolutionise education in India. The two most important aspects of the RTE are: (a) 25 per cent reservation for children from weaker sections of society in class I and; (b) no punishment or detention till class VIII.
The provision of 25 per cent reservation will not just help poor children, it will also rescue rich children from their isolation as Mukul Kesavan points out in his article in The Telegraph (“To be educated together,” April 22). Some people have tried to push the fraudulent (and possibly motivated) argument that this mix will put an unbearable burden on poor children. Let us not forget that because Rosa Parks sat, Martin Luther King could walk and Barack Obama could run. In any case, six-year-olds have their own way of adjusting to and respecting different abilities among their friends and classmates, both inside and outside the classroom. This one step will go a long way towards healing the many fractures in Indian society.
Prohibiting punishment and detention will shift teachers’ focus away from the so-called good students and should also shift the current, completely unreasonable focus on marks instead of an all-round development. About 106 years ago, Rabindranath Tagore had emphasised that a joyless process of education can’t bring the understanding, imagination and the ability to think independently that marks true education. He also said excessive discipline kills the normal and healthy spontaneity of childhood and creates cowards and that a good teacher must nurture the innate tendency of children to explore limits.
Let us hope that school teachers and administrators will take the RTE Act in its right spirit and bring the much needed and overdue joyful learning to Indian schools.
Alok Sarkar Kolkata
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