Jharkhand Education Project Council collaborated with Unicef to produce a visually rich book for children to explain what the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 was all about.
Titled Siksha Mera Adhikar Hai, the book, besides being available in Hindi, also has English, Santhali and Bengali translations.
In easy language, it talks about the importance of the historic RTE Act and the basic rights that a child between the ages of six and 14 years is entitled to.
The books were supposed to be released by chief minister Arjun Munda on December 3 to mark World Disability Day, but the function got postponed to due to unavoidable circumstances.
However, Avinav Kumar, the state programme co-ordinator of inclusive education, Jharkhand Education Project Council, said that by December 10, they would release the books and distribute them across Jharkhand.
"We hope that after reading the books, people from all walks of life will realise the importance of enrolling all children, including disabled ones, in schools. Education is compulsory for every Indian child," Kumar said.
He added that the message needed to be stressed particularly in villages, where child labour in farms is still rampant. Many village children, especially girls, are also sent to cities to work as maid servants.
Binay Pattanayak of Unicef, under whose guidance these publications were developed, said the simple and easy-to-understand content had been prepared to appeal to children, teachers and community members.
"We have also designed stickers based on the book, which highlights the rights of children. They are fun ways to carry the message forward," he said.
Pattanayak added they had planned a series of activities to enhance the understanding of RTE Act such as group activities and street plays.
"We want every child in the state to enjoy his or her basic rights and progress towards holistic development in their formative years as desired under the RTE Act," he said.
"The books have been published in different languages to reach out to the huge number of tribal populations who are still not aware of RTE he added."
Across the hinterland, besides distribution of the illustrated books, various nukkad nataks or street plays will also be held to make people aware of the provision of the RTE Act.
Unicef plans to distribute other pictorial guidebooks ' Towards Community Based Child Friendly Schools in English and Mata Pita Ke Liye in Hindi ' which depict the role of the parent in bringing up their children.
The RTE Act was passed by the Parliament on August 4, 2009 with the provision of free and compulsory education for children in India under Article 21A of the Constitution.
There were an estimated eight million six to 14-year-olds in India who were out of schools in 2009.
The Act came into force in the country on April 1, 2010. India is one of 135 countries to make education a fundamental right of every child.
There are no comments yet