Direction for [ Question No: 11 To 15 ] :
Read the passage given below and answer the following questions as per the understanding of the passage
The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 guarantees to all children within the agegroup 6-14 years the right to education in proper schools with trained teachers. It was a long, long time coming, but this historic legislation, despite the many loopholes, has the power to transform the lives of millions of poor Indian children who have so far been deprived of the opportunity to make their lives better than those of their parents. Since Independence, elementary eduction has grown into a multi-headed monster of sorts, with its own caste system of service-providers - government ordinary, government elite, private elite, private-run but government-funded, and so on. It has provided children of the privileged classes a springboard to greater privilege, while doing nothing to eradicate child labour or provide poor children with even basic literacy, let alone the broader gains of education. Broadly, the vast majority of the population, both rural and urban, send their children to government-run schools as these are free, that is, they do not charge fees. However, given that the quality of education in these schools is usually quite poor, the fast-increasing middle class prefer to send their children to privatelyrun schools. The new Act addresses some of these issues, but not the more important concern - teacher absenteeism. Various studies have shown that at any given time, 30% of teachers at government schools are absent from their classrooms. While the Act mandates the number of teaching hours per year, it does not address the lack of accountability on the part of the teacher or the system if the mandated number of hours is not actually provided. Other problems include discrimination on a caste basis, violence and abuse of children, and discrimination against girls. The latter is not often overt but a result of certain existing situations: for example, 27% of schools do not have even one female teacher, resulting in a lack of confidence on the part of parents, especially of older girls. Fifty percent of schools do not have separate toilets for girls. As a result, it is estimated that for every 100 girls who enrol in school in rural India, 40 will reach Class IV, 18 will reach Class VIII, nine will reach Class IX, and only one will make it to Class XII. And finally, and more significantly, what are children learning ? The stated aim of elementary education is to provide the child with the knowledge, skills and qualities to become an independent, thinking, creative human being. But a report shows that on the ground we are far from even providing them the basic literacy skills. This is the biggest challenge now that children are increasingly going to be brought into the mainstream - can the system help them develop into independent, thinking, creative human beings ? Or will it turn out barely literate automatons that have lost their innate ability to question and explore ?
