LET US ACT TOGETHER for children…Are you on board?

Our advisory board member ,child rights activist and author writes about CACR ...

"A group of citizens in Mumbai get together and rally for the rights of children.

CACR – a not for profit entity takes birth and commits itself to make the right to education a reality for every child.

The Constitution (Eighty-sixth Amendment) Act, 2002 inserted Article 21-A in the Constitution of India to provide free and compulsory education of all children in the age group of 6-14 years as a Fundamental Right in a manner as the State may, by law, determine. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, which represents the consequential legislation envisaged under Article 21-A, means that every child has a right to full time elementary education of satisfactory and equitable quality in a formal school that satisfies certain essential norms and standards. With this, India has moved forward to a rights based framework that casts a legal obligation on the Central and State Governments to implement this fundamental child right. 

This is a landmark occurrence for the fate of children in India. Children have been guaranteed their right to quality elementary education by the state with the help of families and communities. And this brings us to the questions, where do we stand in all this? How can we be involved? What can we do?

The Act calls for 25% reservation of seats in unaided school as well for children of economically weaker sections. And when we say all children, we must include children with special needs and differently abled children. Thus an environment of inclusive education is desired and demanded. Also, the RTE states that every school must have a School Management Committee (SMC) consisting of school administration, parents and community members to manage the school and ensure that the children receive quality education. We need to come forward and participate in the functioning of our neighbourhood municipal schools! This thought was conceived and executed a few years back via the volunteer program of a leading child rights NGO. The project grew and organically emerged as a formal association of citizens.

CACR – Citizen’s Association for Child Rights was registered in 2013 to bring together like-minded people to work with the education department to improve the BMC school system in Mumbai.

Four years since the Right to Education Act was passed and a lot remains to be done to ensure that every child is in school and is learning. CACR mandates itself to constantly work with the schools, children, parents and the education department to understand the programs, budgets, implementation, loop holes and lacunae and try to find solutions to make things work. CACR knows that it needs to be consistent and persistent in its approach. To run a school efficiently, it is imperative to ask all stakeholders to spell out their problems and ideas.

CACR has nominated many citizens representatives in the SMC of various schools. They have been playing an important role to discuss the challenges such as dropping enrolment in schools, quality of mid-day meal and cleanliness in schools. They have been playing a constructive role in improving the quality of education by conducting regular workshops on computer skills and introducing interactive Spoken English program. Since CACR members have been observing and helping BMC schools for many years, they are aware about the administrative and technical bottlenecks. CACR core members have even conducted SMC training programs in schools for teachers and parents.

CACR is in this for the long haul and is willing to make changes one step at a time. Many things are under the scanner and CACR members are bringing them to the notice of the authorities on a regular basis. Alongside, CACR members are improving the situation with some short-term inputs like sharing of experiences in formal forums of the education department,, conducting RTE training, teacher training, enrolment drives and taking spoken English classes. This is to impart consistent and good quality teaching of English to children from the economically disadvantaged strata who are attending free vernacular medium schools. The spoken English DVDs are scientifically and attractively made by The Bombay Community Public Trust and TATA Interactive systems.

This new initiative prevents dropouts and reduction in enrolment of new entrants to vernacular schools, utilizes the existing infrastructure, motivates and simultaneously improves the English skills of the existing teaching staff.

 CACR is also forging some useful partnerships for children. It has partnered with the Rotary Club of Mumbai for the Chhatra Adhikaar Project (CAP) to monitor and improve the quality of education in schools. As a part of this program, the Rotary Club of Mumbai oversees the functioning and quality of education in BMC schools with CACR. Many respected Rotarians have now decided to be a part of the SMC in municipal schools, as mandated under Right to Education Act, and will now have regular interaction with the authorities of the Education department.

CACR and IIT Bombay has partnered to impart Basic IT skills (CLP program) to students using spoken tutorial program. IIT has developed self-learning, spoken-tutorial CD with multiple language options that can teach students computer skills such as typing and saving a text document, making an excel sheet and presentation slides, etc. The course is made for students of class 5th, 6th and 7^th standards i.e. students in the age group of 10 to 13 years. CACR needs more dedicated volunteers, who can participate in implementing this national-level project as approved by the Ministry of HRD.

 The BMC authorities have also taken initiative by installing a virtual classroom to attract more students. The Virtual Classrooms are installed in 360 primary and 120 secondary schools. 800 teachers have been trained by the Education department to operate the VCT equipment. CACR volunteers, with the help of Central Virtual Classroom Control Centre at Dasturwadi, Dadar, are helping the school authorities to activate the Virtual Classroom equipment in schools. Volunteers have already helped to install and set the VC system in 2 to 3 schools and are still counting. CACR volunteers have used these VC’s to implement Computer Literacy and Spoken English programs as well.

Other area where CACR plays the role of a ‘monitor’ is as follows:

1. The 27 items that are distributed to each child at the start of each new school year.

2. The mid-day meal, which is a nutritious sumptuous meal.

3. School Infrastructure wherein CACR volunteers keep a track of the physical infrastructure and report     any faulty repairs and need for construction.

CACR is an association of volunteers who are citizens, activists, ALMs (Area Locality Management), etc. They have one thing in common – they all want the best for Indian children!

CACR members have a lot to do! Please join us and make Quality education a reality for every child studying in Municipal schools in Mumbai.

And this… is just to start with!

To volunteer please write to Dr. Richa Singh – Volunteer Member at richa_singh@ngocacr.com

To donate please write to Mr. Nitin Wadhwani - Founder Member and Director, CACR at nitin_wadhwani@ngocacr.com   "

Written by Ms. Lara Shankar - Founder member and Advisory Board member, CACR