Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2012: A landmark development (Part One)

In what appeared to be an optimistic move, the National Assembly adopted a landmark bill that guarantees free education to children of five to sixteen years of age. The Senate, the Upper House of Parliament, has already passed the bill: Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2012.

The bill, originally, was meant for schools established within the Islamabad Capital Territory but, referring to Article 25-A of the Constitution, the National Assembly unanimously called upon all provinces to adopt similar bills as soon as possible, ensuring access to quality free education for all children of school-going age. Such a reminder to provinces was deemed necessary by parliament because the federal government can no longer legislate on education for provinces.

Pakistan Peoples’ Party’s (PPP) Seeda Iqbal had moved it as a private member’s bill in the Senate and Yasmin Rehman of the ruling party in the National Assembly. It will become an act of parliament and bind all governments to follow it in letter and spirit when President Asif Ali Zardari affixes his signatures on it.

Undoubtedly, this is landmark legislation and every citizen of Pakistan will welcome it for meeting the most basic need of the national life where poverty forces parents to send their children to work for sustenance rather than enrolling them in schools. The recent development is bound to broaden the base of education in the country and also takes due care of private sector in education besides promising an end to child labor.

Apart from that there are also some issues that need to be addressed before we join the educated world and develop meaningful faculties to impart learning corresponding with technological advancement around the globe.

The main issue is the national resource allocation that should be enough to cater the need of free education up to secondary school. The government would require immense allocations to send children up to 16 years of age to school.

Earmarking about six per cent of the GDP is a conservative estimate for the huge task whereas the current size of educational spending is 1.7 per cent because one thirds of children of this age group do not go to schools at all.

Sending children to schools will also be a big socio-economic problem because the country will have to provide families such sustenance as to make them send their children for education.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=35246

Posted by Faisal Farooq on Nov 24 2012. Filed under Education, Opinion, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.