Hyderabad: The School Teachers Federation of India (STFI) has alleged that the amendment made to the RTE Act will increase school dropout numbers, particularly in the government schools, and will affect the downtrodden in society. The federation strongly condemned the amendment to RTE, particularly regarding abolishing ‘no-detention policy’ and implementing detention policy.
According to STFI, the government has failed to implement Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE), so instead of scrapping no-detention policy the government should take measures to strengthen the CCE policy. The STFI condemned the cut-down version of budget allocations in the education sector, particulary in the states where the opposition parties are in power. The STFI also criticised another proposal of the HRD ministry to abolish the UGC and to constitute the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) which has been done to dilute the independent functioning of the UGC. The federation strongly condemned the centralisation and captures of independent educational institutions like the UGC to rehabilitate the Sangh Parivar agenda and their policies. It also demanded to regularise the services of all contract teachers.
Mr Chava Ravi, vice president, Telangana State United Teachers Federation, said, “We plan to take a nationwide campaign on all issues within six months and we will start the campaign from August 12, on the foundation day of STFI and we will carry out a block level campaign across the country and district level rallies in September and state level programmes in the capital of the respective states in October 2018. We will also conduct a national-level protest in Delhi in January 2019.”
