New Delhi: The historic Act, Right to Education (RTE) Act, which makes education a fundamental right of every child and promises to provide free and compulsory education to all children in age group of 6-14 years, is set to face many obstacles. Following are the key challenges to implementing this historic fundamental right:
i) Shortage of funds. In the first year of implementation, the Act is likely to face a shortage of Rs 7,000 crore (Rs.70 billion).
ii) India needs at least 500,000 more teachers and without them the act will not be able to see success;
iii) The number of untrained teachers in the country ranges from 10-40 percent of the total strength;
iv) There are still many states which are not very cooperative in implementing the Act in true spirit mainly because of paucity of funds;
v) Hundreds of thousands of schools still don't have adequate infrastructure. Can they catch up with time or face a ban? Both ways, its a loss for the country;
vi) There is no clear road map on how the government wants to help 8.1 million out of school children back to classroom;
vii) Will there be a proper monitoring system to see its execution. Else, it will fall on the wayside. Both states and the central government will blame each other for its failure.
