First of all, I would like to discuss about NCPCR ( The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights ) which has been mentioned in RTE (Right To Education ) chapter VI ‘Protection of Right of Children’. After that I will look into the details critically of its goal, role and functions. I will also mention how the NCPCR is working currently. Having said all, I will offer some considerable suggestions but valuable at the end which could be meaningful for further enhancement of capacity of the NCPCR.
The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill, 2008, passed by Rajya Sabha in July 2009, which defines the right to education as right to free and compulsory education for 6-14 years age group of children. This can be translated into reality through required infrastructure, good governance, trained teachers and adequate funding. Salient features of RTE Bill The Right to Education Bill comprises 37 clauses, 17 definitions. It defines the dimensions of what it means to provide for a child's right to education in the Indian context. In Chapter VI, RTE has given enough space for NCPCR for ‘Proctection Right of Children. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) is a larger body that monitors the right to education and there is a finance sharing arrangement also stated in the bill.
Since RTE opened the scope saying that there has to be a body to monitor the right to education. It says that appropriate governments have to ensure that no child from weaker sections is discriminated against and to also monitor the functioning of schools. There should be steps to ensure the admission attendance, completion of elementary education and attendance of records of all children up to the age of 14. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights is to monitor and to act with quasi‑judicial powers. Rules have to be made comprehensively by each state with guidelines that will be issued by the central government and all the appropriate governments will be making specific rules.
The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) was made in March 2007 as a legal body under the Commissions for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005 (4 of 2006), an Act of Parliament (December 2005). Basically, it was set up to encourage and protect child rights in the country. This commission will protect all children who come under between 0 to 18 ages. This policy gives more preference to those children who are vulnerable, marginalized and backward children. The NCPCR believes that all children should enjoy their right till 18th year according to their entitlement given in Indian Constitution.
Roles and Functions of the NCPCR
The Commission will do following activities.
(i) It will look at given under any law for in force for the protection of child rights and recommend measures for their effective implementation
(ii) It will make inquiries into violation of child rights and recommend introduction of trial in such cases
(iii) It will scrutinize all factors that become problem in the enjoyment of rights of children affected by terrorism, communal violence, riots, natural disasters, domestic violence, HIV/ AIDS, trafficking, maltreatment, torture and exploitation, pornography, and prostitution and recommend appropriate remedial measures.
(iv) It will look into matters related to children in need of special care and protection, including children in distress, marginalized and disadvantaged children, children in conflict with law, juveniles, children without family and children of prisoners and recommend appropriate remedial measures.
(v) It can also undertake and promote research in the field of child rights.
(vi) It will extend child rights literacy among various sections of society and promote awareness of the safeguards available for protection of these rights through publications, media, seminars and other available means.
(vii) It will make look over any juvenile custodial home or any other place of residence or institution meant for children, under the control of the Central Government or any State Government or any other authority including any institution run by a social organization, where children are detained or lodged for the purpose of treatment, reformation or protection and take up with these authorities for remedial action, if found necessary.
(viii) Inquire into complaints and take up motto notice of matters related to:
• If there is any deprivation and violation of child rights.
• Non compliance of policy decisions, guidelines or instructions aimed at mitigating hardships to and ensuring welfare of the children and to provide relief to such children.
• Non implementation of laws providing for protection and development of children.
Capacities of NCPCR
The Commission, has all powers of the Civil Court trying go under the Code of Civil Procedures, 1908 and in particular, with respect to the following matters:
1. It can give call and enforcing the attendance of any person from any part of India and examining them on pledge.
2. It can requiring the discovery and production of any documents
3. It can receive evidence on affidavits.
4. It can requisition of any Public Record or copy thereof from any Court of Office
5. It can set commissions for the examination of witnesses or documents
6. Forwarding cases to Magistrates who have jurisdiction to try the same.
7. On completion of inquiry, the Commission has the powers to take the following actions:
a. To recommend to concerned Government for initiation of proceedings for prosecution or other suitable action on finding any violation of child rights and provisions of law during the course of an inquiry
b. To approach the Supreme Court or the High Court concerned for such directions, orders or writs as that Court may deem necessary.
c. To recommend to concerned Government or authority for grant of such interim relief to the victim or the members of his family as considered necessary.
8. The basic thrust and core mandate of the Commission is to inquire into complaints of violations of child rights. The commission is also supposed to take suo moto cognisance of serious cases of violation of child rights and to examine factors that inhibit the enjoyment of rights of children.
a. Complaints may be made to the Commission in any language of the 8th Schedule of the Constitution.
b. No fee shall be chargeable on such complaints.
c. The complaint shall disclose a complete picture of the matter leading to the complaint.
d. The Commission may seek further information/ affidavits as may be considered necessary. (www.ncpcr.gov.in)
It is significant to make a note of that at the time when the bureaucracy was preparing the groundwork for introducing the much diluted bill in Parliament, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) had passed a resolution for the abolition of child labour and realisation of right to education, adhering to three non‑negotiable core principles: (a) any person below 18 years of age is a child; (b) all forms of child labor need to be abolished; (c) all children who are out of school are child labourers and all work whether hazardous or non‑hazardous is detrimental the growth of a child. The NCPCR looks to the State to subscribe to these recommendations as guiding principles while formulating policies and legislations towards abolishing child labour and realizing the right to education.
But it is the biggest paradox that the core recommendations made by the NCPCR, which is a national level body having the mandate to monitor the implementation of the new Act. If it comes through, were not even taken note of leave alone incorporated into the text of the new education bill. Further, inclusion of the NCPCR recommendations would have altered at least certain important definitions such as ‘child’, ‘working child’, ‘child labour’, etc. But its opposite , even the definitions that were there in the February 2008 draft bill relating to ‘working child’, ‘out‑of‑school child’, ‘migrant family’, etc. were removed by the government in the education bill tabled in the Rajya Sabha.
We find that the structure has to be constructed in a particular manner. Another point that needs to be mentioned is that the whole exercise of making education justifiable rests upon the fact that a child must first have a lawyer to take a case to a court. For this, a lawyer must be sensitive to the fact that the child is being deprived of education. Those children who cannot afford a teacher can hardly afford a lawyer. The entire exercise of justifiability is depending upon the idea that a lawyer would come forward to take the case for the child's right to education. Yet there are hardly any lawyers fighting public interest litigations for the right to education. The absence of a follow up of legislation is not material, as there is nothing to prevent lawyers from taking cases to the higher courts. So it interprets the Constitution in harmony with convention on the Rights of the Child.
Now we can see that how NCPCR is working through its public hearing in villages. No doubt, there is demand among poor parents for education throughout the country. For them, education is an important tool to break the cycle of poverty and marginalization. They see education bringing in equity and justice. They are willing to make enormous sacrifices to get their children educated. About six months ago, a team from National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) visited the residential bridge course (RBC) set up by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in a remote tribal pocket at Jhajha (Jamui district) of Bihar. At the public hearing it was heard how an intense programme of social mobilisation with active role of the local youth and the gram panchayat members motivated over 400 tribal girls who had never been to school getting ready to join the RBC. However, the government had place only for 50. It was decided by the community that all the girls, aged 14, would go for this bridge course as once they turned 15 they would lose their educational opportunity.
Similar case, after the meeting and a drive of two kilometers, a group of tribal women stopped the procession and told the NCPCR team that they wanted their children to complete at least class X but had no school after class V in the vicinity and their children, had to walk 16 kilometers to go to the nearest school which was only up to class VIII. The NCPCR team asked them why they had not raised this issue at the public hearing and the women answered quite strongly whether the authorities have to be told and did not know that their children too required education up to class X and more. This shows that the conventional wisdom that tribal parents are not interested in getting their children educated and especially they do not want their girls to go to school.
Another case we heard in, Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh is an area that has been caught in a situation of civil unrest with the presence of naxals as well as the police, making it impossible for the local population to articulate their difficulties in accessing their entitlements. In the last six months, about five gram panchayats in the Sukma block have mobilised children in their villages to join the local schools with support from NCPCR and in coordination with the district authorities and NGOs. The news of children going to schools in these gram panchayats spread around in the neighbouring blocks. Finally, several tribal parents sought education for their children to take out them from adversities once and for all. They did not want their children to suffer the same fate as they did.
The NCPCR team found during its visit to the northeast that at the relief camps of displaced persons in Tripura and Assam there was a crying demand for education. In Manipur too, where despite suffering from HIV and AIDS children want to be educated. Among the migrant child labourers from Rajasthan to Gujarat, Orissa to Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra to Gujarat, Bihar to Mumbai, it has been found that if only the education system had the capacity to reach out to each of them, these children would not have joined the labour force. In all the public hearings, the NCPCR heard voices of rescued child labourers yearning for education and struggling hard to win their battle for schools. It is clear that education alone can realize the possibility for the poor to change their future.
Suggestions
1- Regular supervision of schools to protect the child rights by NCPCR
2- Regular public hearing
3- Promote and encourage the RBC(residential bridge course) schools
4- Provide freeof cost lawyer take up the case of victim(child)
5- Need to do publicity for awareness of NCPCR like RTI(right to information)
CONCLUSION
In this way, we see that the successful accomplishment of ensuring that children's right to education is guaranteed would need a wholehearted attempt by all forces/institutions, both within the government and those that lay outside. We need to strengthen and publicity of NCPCR in our country do that people can get benefitted. Having sensitized, people will not engage their children in domestic or send to hazardous work. Eventually, the dream of Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act can be realized in proper way without drop out and absenteeism.
REFERENCE
www.ncpcr.gov.in
Banerjee et at (2007) Can Information Campaigns raise awareness and local participation in Primary Education ? EPW April 14,pp 1365-1373.
Subrahmanian, Ramaya (2003), Community at the centre of Universal Primary Education Strategies: An Empirical Investigation, in Kabeer et an (edited) Child labor and the Right to Education in South asia : Needs versus Rights? Sage, New Delhi.
Combate Law ,May-August 2009, Volumje 8, issue 3& 4
