Dropouts to Learners: The Challenge of the Right to Education Act 2009

Abstract

The focus of educational policy over the years has been to reduce absentees and dropouts in the age group of 6–14 years. The RTE Act, 2009 wishes to ensure quality education for each child up to class VIII as a matter of legal right. Children who are dropouts and non-attendees learn in their own ways from real-life experiences. When they are compulsorily brought in or enticed into school classrooms, the responsibility of teachers and the school increases enormously to ensure that the children have adequate education to develop their talents and eventually to secure their livelihood. Our teachers who are trained in the traditional system of teaching are required to reorient themselves in order to adapt to the new methods of teaching. This requires capacity building in the modes of teaching; otherwise the dropouts and non-attendees will lose interest in studies and will stop coming to schools altogether. The extreme diversity in the background of students and their teachers has to be managed by following new pedagogical paradigms with an eye to vocational options and to certain principles of psychology. The syllabus of the teacher training institutes (TTI) should incorporate materials related to the psychology of dropout and non-attendee children. At the level of recruitment, teachers may be given a teacher aptitude test before they take the entrance examination for TTI admissions.