In India, the universalization of elementary education has been a long-cherished goal which remained elusive even after seven decades of country’s independence. In this long journey, the decade of 2001-2010 witnessed significant effort towards the realization of this goal both at policy and programme fronts. The 86th constitutional amendment declaring the right to elementary education as a fundamental right and further by the passing of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. Keeping in view the significance of this field of education, I inspired to study the perception of elementary school teachers regarding effectiveness of right to education act, 2009. The main objectives of the study are: to examine the adequacy of facilities in elementary schools; effectiveness in implementation of Right to Education Act-2009 provisions; problem faced by head-teachers in implementation of right to education act-2009 at elementary school level; and to seek suggestions for the effectiveness of right to education act, 2009. The result shows that with regards to the adequacy of provisions such as size of the classrooms, grants for the constructions, furniture facilities, food for children, incentives for children, etc. provided under right to education act-2009 at elementary school level the head-teachers are satisfied to great extent. Headteachers faced many problems related to civil work, as it hampered teaching work, manual of instruction for constructions was not provided; as for different grants were concerned the village education committee members did not extend full cooperation in utilization of the grants; as for mid-day-meal for the children was concerned many schools does not have sufficient containers for storage of food grains, utensils for cooking were not as per requirements; training was given to the head-teachers for utilization of provisions but the master-trainer’s knowledge of the subject matter was not up to the mark and there is lack of proper monitoring of in-service training programmes that affects the quality of training; also the text-books were not provided in the beginning of the session and not according the strength of the students. To conclude, the interventions after right to education act-2009, there has been improvement in schooling at elementary stage for universalization of education for all children at elementary level. As head-teachers responded affirmatively to the adequacy of the facilities being provided by the government is satisfactory. The major issues in universalization of elementary education to be addressed are improvement in quality of learning outcomes-the important concern for quality education.

Author: Vikramjeet Singh

Published in: Canada International Conference on Education, 2023

• Date of Conference: 26-28 June, 2023
• DOI: 10.20533/CICE.2023.0042
• Electronic ISBN: 978-1-913572-58-7
• Conference Location: Residence and Conference Centre, Toronto, Canada