A PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking direction to the Centre to provide uniform education having common syllabus and curriculum to all children between 6 to 14 years of age in spirit of the Constitutional principles of equality and right to education.
The petition filed by Delhi BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay contended that the prevailing education was inconsistent with the declaration “to constitute India into Socialist Secular Democratic Republic”.
Claiming that the present education system does not promote socialism and secularism in its true form and spirit, the petitioner claimed Article 21A of the Constitution providing the right to education as one of the important fundamental rights cannot discriminatorily be made available on the basis of child’s social, economic, cultural background.
“Uniform education system having common syllabus and curriculum will alone move away the nation from caste, creed, religion, race, sex and place of birth considerations,” the petitioner claimed, adding, it will be a major step in achieving gender justice as well.
The petitioner stated that the top 10 honest countries of the world ie Finland, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, Canada, Singapore, Australia, Germany, Britain and Japan and other countries had already implemented the value-based uniform education for all children.
“Uniform education to all children aged 6 to 14 years will help in removing the prevailing social, economic and political disparity...“One Nation One Education” system has been successfully implemented by many developed as well as developing countries and it is need of the time to implement in our country to remove disparities,” the PIL stated.
He also cited statements made by Loksabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, as the then member of Parliament, as well as those by Meenakshi Natarajan (INC) Shailendra Kumar (SP), Gorakh Nath Pandey (BSP), Saugata Roy (TMC), Jadgish Sharma (JDU), Saidul Haque (CPI) and Tathagatha Satpathy (BJD), who demanded uniform education system to remove disparities.
The Allahabad High Court had on August 18 directed, “All government servants, elected representatives, members of judiciary and any other persons who get any benefit or salary from the state exchequer or public fund should send their children to primary schools run by the state education board. The court also asked the Uttar Pradesh government to take steps within six months to implement the order.