The governments and the academic institutions under them, like the NCTE, NCERT, SCERTs and so on will ensure the quality of education. This will be done by ensuring that the norms and standards of the schools are adhered to within three years, all teachers are professionally trained in a maximum of five years, curriculum, content and process follows principles laid out in Section 29, a comprehensive and continuous evaluation system is in place, and children learn in an atmosphere free of fear, anxiety and trauma.
The governments would be well advised to seek collaboration from university education departments and civil society groups that have experience in quality elementary education in this effort. These would be monitored by the NCPCR/SCPCRs and civil society institutions.
In addition, as per the model rules 21(3), the appropriate governments must undertake systemic quality reviews periodically through renowned institutions. These checks will not be confined only to testing children’s achievement scores, but will also include assessment of teacher quality, curricular issues, social discrimination, infrastructure and other parameters that impact on quality. The involvement of institutions of higher learning on a continuous basis would be critical in this respect.
