India's rally for Right to Education

On the occasion of 07-07- 07, CADAM in association with National Conference of Dalit Organisations (NACDOR) will begin Shiksha Adhikar Yatra (Journey to Right to Education) from 20 locations in Haryana, India. The Shiksha Adhikar Yatra, comprised of 20 teams, will cover remaining 2746 villages of Haryana.  The Shiksha Adhikar Yatra has already covered 4253 villages in March – April 2007. The Shiksha Adhikar Yatra will cover the catchment of all 13781 schools in Haryana.

Shiksha Adhikar Yatra is an effort of CADAM/NACDOR with Haryana Prathamik Shiksha Pariyojana Parishad to motivate parents of all school going children to send their children in schools and allow them to complete their elementary education. UN Millennium Campaign has endorsed Shiksha Adhikar Yatra.   This Yatra aims at mobilising Haryana Society to ensure that all out of school children or drops out are admitted to nearby schools.  The Yatra is working towards achieving Education for All by 2010.

Shiksha Adhikar Yatra is based on the concept of building peoples' stake in the educational delivery. Shiksha Adhikar Yatra, which developed street plays, songs, communication material for the common persons, will travel through the villages and spend time with the locals to communicate their right to education, motivate villagers to enhance their role in supervising village education committee and day to day supervision of education in the nearby government school. Shiksha Adhikar Yatra also conveys how education of their children can impact their lives. The Yatra distribute pamphlets, badges, paste posters, carry out wall writing and meet village elders, elected representatives, community leaders, teachers and members of Village Education Committee. It has been proved that peoples' mobilisation for their rights has tremendous effect on their attainments. Therefore, Shiksha Adhikar Yatra is focussing on building peoples' stake through their mobilising for their rights.

So far, the stake of the people in the education delivery mechanism has remained at minimum. People hardly consider them as responsible for the maintenance of quality of education delivery process, including infrastructure of schools. Participation of the parents in parent - teachers association of government run school is absolutely low and limited to deposit a fix amount of money as PTA fee. Village Education Committee s are non-functional. In most of the places members of these committees hardly know their roles and responsibilities.

Shiksha Adhikar Yatra is mobilising people to activate these institutions to achieve 100% admissions and retention of the children.    20 teams of Shiksha Adhikar Yatra will cover more than 40,000 (forty thousand) kilometers in 119 education blocks of 20 districts of Haryana in 10 days. The Yatra team will address 20 district press conferences and 2 state level press conferences.  A joint press conference of Shiksha Adhikar Yatra would be addressed by Mr. Minar Pimple, Deputy Director Asia of UNMC, Mr. P. Raghavendra Rao, State Project Director of Haryana Prathamik Shiksha Pariyojana Parishad and Mr. Ashok Bharti on behalf of CADAM/NACDOR.

Training for Shiksha Adhikar Yatra will begin on 4 July 2007 in Chandigarh and all teams of the Yatra will be flagged off on the evening of 07/07/07 from Panchkula in Haryana. Next day on 07/07/07 all Shiksha Adhikar Yatra team start their journey for education.

It is important to point out that India is a signatory to the United Nations Millennium Declaration adopted in September 2000 pledging to achieve eight Millennium Development Goals, including all children to complete a full course of primary schooling and girls and boys will have equal access to all levels of education. Shiksha Adhikar Yatra in Haryana by CADAM /NACDOR with the support of Haryana Prathamik Shiksha Pariyojana Parishad is an effort to realise this goal by 2010.

For more information:

National Conference of Dalit Organisations (NACDOR)

M-3/22, Model Town-III, Delhi 110009 INDIA

Telephone: +91-11-27419002 Fax: +91-11-27442744

website: www.nacdor.org

-----------------

National Conference of Dalit Organisations was formed in December 2001, is a confederation of more than 300 grass root Dalit Organisations spreaded all over India. NACDOR is the founder of World Dignity Forum and is closely linked with the World Social Forum, GCAP, MDG and other International Campaigns.