THEME OF THE SEMINAR - DIMENSIONS OF EDUCATION UNDER THE INDIAN CONSTITUTION

BACK GROUND

Education is essential for every person, to live with basic human dignity. Education liberates man from ignorance, exploitation and oppression. It promotes freedom, progress and equal opportunities for all citizens. Therefore, education has been looked upon as the most precious and meaningful investment for human development. The stage is under the constitutional obligation to secure right to education to all citizens and for its equitable distribution in terms of opportunities

At the time of framing of the Indian Constitution, the right to education could not be guaranteed as a fundamental right except as a directive to state to secure right to education under Art. 41, due to the economic incapacity and lack of development at that time. Only recently, through the 86th Constitution Amendment Act 2002 that one of the directives under the Art 45 has been elevated as a Fundamental Right to Education under Art 21A. However, the Constitution unde Art. 46 directed the State among other things to promote with special care the educational interests of weaker sections of people.

Education is essential for every person, to live with basic human dignity. Education liberates man from ignorance, exploitation and oppression. It promotes freedom, progress and equal opportunities for all citizens. Therefore, education has been looked upon as the most precious and meaningful investment for human development. The state is under the constitutional obligation to secure right to education to all citizens and for its equitable distribution in terms of opportunities.

At the time of framing of the Indian Constitution, the right to education could not be guaranteed as a fundamental right except as a directive to State to secure right to education under Art. 41 , due to the economic incapacity and lack of development at that time. Only recently, through the 86th Constitution Amendment Act 2002 that one of the directives under Art. 45 has been elevated as a Fundamental Right to education under Art. 21 A. However, the Constitution under Art. 46 directed the State among other things to promote with special care the educational interests of weaker sections of people .

Thus, the constitution has made provisions for advancement of educational interests of citizens and for taking special care of the socially and educationally backward classes. Further, the finer points of general education, school education, professional education and higher education were not made out clearly. The Constitution through Art. 15 and 29 (2) ensured equal opportunity in admissions into educational institutions. Art. 15(3) enables the State to make special provisions even with regard to education in favour of women. Art 15(4) empowered the State to make special provisions for the advancement of socially and educationally backward class with regard to admissions into educational institutions for historical reasons. Art 26 (a) also extends a fundamental right to every religious denomination or any section thereof to establish and maintain institutions for religious and charitable purposes. Art 29 ensured a right to all the citizens to conserve distinct language, script or culture and may even include their right to establish educational institutions for that purpose. The right to establish and administer educational institutions has been guaranteed to the minorities as a fundamental right under Art.30.

The constitutional right of education has to be so exercised as to achieve not only well being of the citizens in their future intellectual, social and economic life, but also to inculcate among them a sense of individual and social consciousness for the contribution of the welfare and prosperity of our secular society, unity and integrity of the nation. The policy of Education is to build up fraternity and feeling of brotherhood but not to make it remain as a pious hope. It should not stand as a barrier to the evolution of India as a strong nation. The Constitutional goal of promoting fraternity assuring the dignity of individual and unity of the nation is of paramount importance and is above all the Fundamental Rights.

Many developments have taken place during the past half-century in the working of the Constitution in the sphere of education. The policy of liberalization, privatization and globalization has made an immense impact on education in India. At present, the education imparted by the State and the one offered by the private sector including minority educational institutions are coming into conflict in terms of quality, standard, cost and excellence. The encouragement given by the Government to the corporate schools, sometimes at the cost of traditional educational institutions, has come up for an intensive discussion and debate.

The Government appears to be distancing itself from offering higher education and slowly, gradually, retaining only a nominal control over it, consequently leaving the entire field open to the private and corporate sector.

A number of issues came up before the judiciary for its consideration like the status of right to education, scope and limits of protective discrimination, identification of socially, educationally backward classes, its scope under various fundamental rights, meaning and content of the expression "minorities" in Article 30, right to establish and administer educational institutions, the scope of "of their choice" under Article 30(1), and power of the State and professional bodies to regulate the private and minority educational institutions in imparting general and professional education, power of state to impose regulations for maintaining academic and professional standards and its power of affiliation, recognition and grant-in-aid, etc. That apart, constitutional distribution of legislative power in a dual polity under the constitution and legislations made by the Parliament and state legislatures for regulating professional and general education occasionally gave rise to important and difficult legal controversies.

The judicial interpretation, it is respectfully submitted, has not always been illuminating, occasionally erroneous, and many a time Supreme Court pronouncements failed to solve the problems. As such it is felt that there is a need to have a second look at some of the dimensions of education under the Indian constitution, and implications of judicial pronouncements particularly in the higher and professional education for immediate and careful attention. Hence, the seminar is being organised by Pendekanti Law College, Hyderabad, during the month of July 2003 at Hyderabad,

Eminent personalities and Legal Luminaries from the Bench, Bar and academicians are being invited to participate in the seminar. You are invited to present a paper on any of the topics provided in the break up or you can choose any other relevant area not covered under the above break up. Your participation and valuable contribution will go a long way in making the deliberations more meaningful and pave the way for finding out some concrete solutions to the problems. Efforts will be made to publish the accepted papers fo the seminar as a book and release the same on the firs day of seminar. All the outstation participants Whose papers have been accepted for publication will be informed about it and paid both ways railway second class fare through the nearest route, to attend the seminar. Please mail your paper along with a soft copy (on floppy) so as to reach us on or before 28th June 2003 The delegate fee is Rs.200/-, which entitles the participants to have Seminar proceedings and lunch on the days of the seminar.

Further details will be communicated in due course.

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