Chennai: The Madras high court on Tuesday said the state is bound to provide free and compulsory education up to the school level, ie, up to class XII (secondary education).
Passing orders on a batch of petitions relating to approval of appointment of non-teaching staff in private aided schools, Justice D. Hariparanthaman said as far as school education was concerned, the state was duty-bound to provide free and compulsory education as mandated under Article 21-A of the Constitution and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act.
Therefore, private aided schools, that were imparting free education, and beneficiaries being the downtrodden, shall not be denied aid to non-teaching staff posts by the impugned government orders. Considering Articles 41 and 46 along with Article 21-A of the Constitution, in the light of the Supreme Court decision in Mohini Jain and Unni Krishnan cases, the State was bound to provide free and compulsory education up to the school level.
“In my view, there is a fundamental right for free and compulsory education up to plus-2 level and more particularly, wherever the schools are already getting aid up to standard XII level, the same cannot be denied. Private aided schools in these petitions are in receipt of aid up to middle school/high school/higher secondary school level”, the judge said.
The judge said the state could not say it could grant aid only up to class IX and it could deny aid to class X No teacher or non-teaching staff could be appointed exclusively for class X. It was impossible. Likewise, classes in higher secondary schools imparting education up to +2 level cannot also be separable.
