Teachable moments

For a party that prides itself on its rights-based agenda - having passed the right to information, employment, food, and education laws in the past decade - the Congress brass would have been sorely disappointed by last week's symposium on the "Stocktaking of the Right To Education Act, 2009". Educationists under the umbrella of the RTE Forum, which had several civil society organisations participating, lambasted the government for the poor implementation of the RTE Act. Speaker after speaker made it clear that they would only vote for those political parties that assured them "equitable quality education". Evidently the Congress' largesse appears to have boomeranged; merely promising rights is not enough if the intent is not translated into progress on the ground.