The All India Parents Association (AIPA) on June 5 concluded its two-day national convention in Hyderabad with a call to parents to empower themselves by legal literacy and working as a community. It said that judiciary at the lower level remains the best bet for aggrieved parents as Right to Education Act is a statutory and constitutional law and therefore justifiable. “Before this Act and article 21A, one had to rely on the higher courts to file cases, but now there is no need of that. One has just to walk in to his sub-divisional court and file case,” said Ashok Agarwal, president AIPA and advocate who has filed hundreds of cases on school education in last 25 years.
AIPA has also asked parents to rope in children in this two-prolonged strategy of enforcing proper schools and schooling in every school in the country. “Children can write Post Cards about problems of their schools to the Chief Justice of India. They can also write about good things. But the realization has to be that if the government on its own continues to ignore its duties towards children, it can be forced through court orders,” added Aggarwal. Even sending notices to the concerned officers under relevant provisions has an effect as higher ups in the administration get alerted and try to address the grievance.
AIPA said people had to be relentless and pervasive to highlight problems such as lack of teachers, lack of drinking water or toilets, under provisioning, etc and organize themselves to prevail upon the system to get these fixed. “We are there behind you, take the initiative. There are so many media and social media platform to voice concerns and this all should help all those who want to ensure good schooling for children in government schools,” he added.
On the question of national law on fee regulation, AIPA reiterated the demand even as it sensed privatization is encouraged at the expense of eventually shutting down government schools.
