Along with private schools, government schools across the country will also have nursery classes very soon as the central government is working on including pre-primary education under the Right to Education (RTE) Act through an amendment.

A plan is under consideration currently to bring pre-primary to secondary education under the act. Under the RTE Act currently, every child is entitled to free education from six years of age, which usually starts from class 1 in government schools, upto 14 years, which ends in Class 9. After the amendment in RTE, children of a younger age will also be entitled to free and compulsory education and will be able to stay in the education system till they complete school.

This will be the main agenda of this year’s meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) committee, which is the highest decision-making body on all matters related to education. The CABE committee had last year recommended that no-detention policy should be done away with and Class 10 board exams should be brought back.

According to sources in Ministry of Human Resource Development, Minister of State for HRD Satyapal Singh will have a meeting with members of CABE sub-committee on January 11, before the actual CABE meeting on January 15 and 16 to discuss the possibilities of amendment. The final report will be discussed in the actual CABE meeting later which is scheduled in Delhi. “After the amendment, children of all age groups will be a part of the education system. This will serve dual purpose: including younger children in the system and controlling dropouts after class 9,” said a source.

Govt mulls move
A plan is under consideration to bring pre-primary to secondary education under the RTE Act. After the amendment, kids of a younger age will also be entitled to free and compulsory education.