The All Indian Parents' Association (AIPA) has written a letter with a set of demands to the Prime Minister's office for the third time now, one of the demands being that all minority schools in the country must be brought under the ambit of the Right to Education by making necessary amendments to the Constitution.
"We have been demanding the Right to Education for minority schools since the year 2012," AIPA National President Advocate Ashok Agarwal said. He added that, in his opinion, there is no protection for minority students, "Several minority schools have been demanding excess fees from students because of current laws," Agarwal said. The letter includes ten points in total and is addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Recently, a survey conducted by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights had suggested that the number of underprivileged students studying in minority schools was on the lower side and also indicated that the reservation systems weren't quite in balance.
Agarwal added there has been no response from the government even after raising these issues multiple times. "Once my letter was sent ahead to the CBSE but they said that private schools teachers are covered under regulations, that's it. Nobody thinks about what is asked and what the response is that they're giving," he said.
The letter also asked that the government extend RTE to Class XII so that children from marginalised sections of society don't fall behind. "We had taken this up with Prakash Javadekar when he was in charge of the MHRD and he had assured us that RTE would be extended till Class XII but then he took a complete U-turn," Agarwal said. He claimed that Javadekar told him unless there is large scale public demand for this, the government would not consider extending it.
Apart from that, the AIPA has also demanded that mid-day meals be served to all children regardless of their academic levels. The letter reads, "...private schools and hospitals are completely exposed (in light of the pandemic) leaving no iota of doubt that private schools and hospitals cannot serve the common man of this country."
