Major challenges in implementing Right to Education

NEW DELHI - The historic Right to Education (RTE) act that promises to provide every child compulsory elementary education is set to face many hurdles. Following are the key challenges to implementing this historic fundamental right:

* Shortage of funds. In the first year of implementation, the act is likely to face a shortage of Rs. 7,000 crore (Rs. 70 billion);

* India needs at least 500,000 more teachers and without them the act will not be able to see success;

* The number of untrained teachers in the country ranges from 10-40 percent of the total strength;

* There are still many states who are not very cooperative in implementing the act in true spirit mainly because of paucity of funds;

* Hundreds of thousands of schools still don’t have adequate infrastructure. Can they catch up with time or face a ban? Both ways, its a loss for the country;

* There is no clear road map on how the government wants to help 8.1 million out of school children back to classroom;

* Will there be a proper monitoring system to see its execution. Else it will fall on the wayside. Both states and the central government will blame each other for its failure.