The Delhi High Court has issued a notice to the Union Ministries of Education, Law and Justice and Home Affairs with respect to a plea demanding common syllabus for Madarsas and Vedic Schools as per the Right to Education Act, 2009.
The plea was filed by BJP leader and Supreme Court Advocate, Ashwini Upadhyay, arguing that Sections 1(4) and 1(5) of the RTE Act should be declared arbitrary and unconstitutional.
Both these sections were introduced in 2012 and provide that the Right to Education Act will not be applicable to schools with religious connotations like Madarsas, Vedic Pathshalas and other educational institutions imparting religious knowledge.
The notice was issued by a Division Bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh, which gave the respondents time till March 30 to come up with a response.
In his plea, Upadhyay has argued that the RTE Act must be construed and implemented in a way so that “The Constitutional goals do not remain mere dead letters of statute, but further cherish its principles”.
As per the provisions of the RTE Act, the Centre is empowered and obligated to formulate common syllabus and curriculum for all educational institutions in consonance to the goals of the preamble, as it forms the basic framework for any other laws.
“A compulsory education, which mandates every child to attend school, but lacks in providing/executing an effective common curriculum is worse than providing no education at all. Hallmark of a compulsory education system is syllabus and curriculum, which must be equally and uniformly applied across the board, so as to ensure conditions, in which each child is placed on an equal playing field, competent to take on the challenges of the real world and empowered to avail the opportunities which life offers in its myriad circumstances, equally,” read the plea.
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