Pics: Spoorthi Ullal

Daijiworld Media Network-Mangaluru (JD)

Mangaluru, Jun 30: “Parents have larger role in a child's education than teachers. If parents are aware of their children’s whereabouts and give them the attention they deserve, we not only can reduce the missing cases, but also we can the prime reason for educating them,” said P Manjula, assistant sub inspector of Mangaluru South police station.

She was addressing as the chief guest in a meeting convened to address the issues during the implementation of Right to Education (RTE) in School of Social Work, Roshini Nilaya premises on Thursday, June 30.

“Due to the working parents, children are often not given enough attention these days. In rural families, children are given household work and they miss love and care from their parents. Children are sent to schools but many parents do not know what their child is doing in the school or what is taught to them in the school. When a child is asked, it says that there is lot of work at home and it does not like going home. Sometimes these children end up getting lost and prone to social evils. While asked the reason for this, these children say that they are not provided with proper food and clothing and hence want to stand on their own feet to earn. More than 4 children are missing in the South Police station jurisdiction,” she noted.

“If parents take proper care of their children, we can reduce number of children from becoming victims of social evils,” she added.

The key note address of the meeting was rendered by Kasturi Boluvaru, convener of Padi Foundation.

“In our districts, even today there are many schools which are run by one teacher. Even though there are classes from one to seven, the same teacher has to manage all the students. The department says that there are two teachers appointed in the school but one of them is deputed to the neighbouring school. In this context, how can a teacher concentrate on education of all children? There are many schools in the district till seventh standard which are run by three teachers. The circular from the education department states that specialised teachers must teach the subjects like maths and science for the classes six, seven and eight. It also says that the school must also have part time teachers who teach additional skills. In contrary, we do not have enough teachers in schools. Then how can we expect the RTE be implemented in these schools and what circulars must we follow?” Kasturi said.

“95 percent of education department’s circulars stress to provide 25 percent of the seats to the minority and students from backward classes as per RTE, but nowhere it is implemented. The local panchayats must take care of the implementation of RTE in schools and this clause is a must in RTE act. Nowhere this is followed as there is no coordination between the gram panchayats, schools and the education department,” she added.

President of Dakshina Kannada union of education resource centres, Sridhar Rao, secretary Gopalakrishna, vice-president Nanda Pais and others were present on the occasion.