Policy Briefs & Reports

Community Monitoring Process of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009

Kiran Bhatty, Parash Ram Banjara, Priyanka Varma

December 15, 2013

This photo document is part of a larger exercise on documenting the ‘Community Monitoring’ process of the Right to Education Act (RTE), a process that first began in 2010 when this team was at the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) and received support from the Ministry of Human Resource Development. The documentation of the exercise was later conducted as part of the PAGE Team’s work at CPR.

While community monitoring in Education is relatively new, it has already shown tremendous potential in transforming the delivery of education in India. Its strength lies in the idea that monitoring can best be achieved by the rights-holders themselves through a system that empowers them to provide feed-back to the relevant authorities on the status of implementation of the Act. This also involves building a culture of dialogue amongst the people and with the administration. Based on these notions NCPCR conducted a pilot in 12 States across the country between 2010-2013, involving several local groups and the community itself in monitoring their schools under the RTE Act. It generated enormous enthusiasm amongst the community and provided a platform and space to voice their concerns, with outcomes also being many and varied – ranging from improved mid day meals and functional School Management Committees (SMC)