Right to Education (RTE) Act

With the approval of the Union Cabinet to introduction of a bill in Parliament to amend the Right to Education (RTE) Act so as to include disabled children under its ambit, one hopes a very special class of children would have their problems addressed in a proper way. The amendment will provide for special rights to pursue free and compulsory elemental education to children with disabilities as defined in the National Trust for Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disabilities Act, 1999. It will ensure their inclusion in the category of ‘‘children belonging to disadvantaged group’’. Since the children of disadvantaged group are entitled to 25 per cent reservation, the disabled children will now be entitled to such benefits once the amendment is passed. But one wonders what stopped the government from including such disabled children in the ‘‘disadvantaged group’’ in the first place and why there should be an amendment only now as though a realization of the folly has dawned on it all of a sudden. A society cannot be called civilized if it has no room for the disabled or the differently abled children. Their needs are special. And we must respect that speciality. THE SENTINEL