The Bombay High Court has questioned the delay in bringing out pre-primary education policy and directed the concerned authorities to frame the same by year end.
The court has directed that the policy in Maharashtra must be in line with the provisions of the Right to Education Act underlining the importance and benefits mentioned in the act for a child to acquire from pre-primary education.
“Having regard to the importance and benefits a child can acquire from preprimary education, the framers of the statute took care of pre-primary education also, which is a foundation in the education of any person,” said the High Court.
The bench of chief justice Manjula Chellur and justice RM Borde has passed the order recently in Aurangabad during the hearing of a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Dr Jagganath Patil. The PIL has highlighted the hardships and expressed the grievances faced by parents while securing admission for their children in good pre-primary schools education of the state.
It is important to lay down the procedure for pre-primary education as it plays a major role in the education system of the country, described under Section 11 of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009.
The court said it failed to understand why the authorities were unable to bring any procedure or policy in Maharashtra even after having a study tour in other states like Rajasthan.
“If such policy is under active consideration of the authorities, we fail to understand, why they need one year to bring it out,” said the bench, when told by the state lawyers that it was working on a policy.
The court set a deadline of December 31 to bring out the policy and disposed the PIL.
