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What does it mean for education to be a fundamental right, and how may children benefit from it? Whoever has a "right" must also be able to claim that right, and not be dependent on the state choosing to provide for the right out of its own benevolence. This book shows why this aspect is of core importance for the right to education, and how the constitutional promise might be made a reality.
List of contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Chapter I: History and Current State of Elementary Education in India
- Chapter II: From a Directive Principle to a Fundamental Right
- Chapter III: Article 21A: Clues for Its Content in International Law and Socio-Economic Rights Adjudication in India
- Chapter IV: Enforcing Rights against the State in India: The Problem of Access to Justice
- Chapter V: The Grievance Redress System under the Right to Education Act
- Chapter VI: Grievance Redress and the Judiciary: Enforcing the Right to Education Through "Macro and Micro-Management"
- Conclusion and Outlook
- Bibliography
- About the Author
- Index
About the author
Florian Matthey-Prakash is a judge, State of Hessen, Germany. He was previously an independent researcher based in Germany with interest in comparative constitutional law, socio-economic rights, access to justice, and education.
Summary
What does it mean for education to be a fundamental right, and how may children benefit from it? Surprisingly, even when the right to education was added to the Indian Constitution as Article 21A, this question received barely any attention. This book identifies justiciability (or, more broadly, enforceability) as the most important feature of Article 21A, meaning that children and their parents must be provided with means to effectively claim their right from the state. Otherwise, it would remain a "right" only on paper. The book highlights how lack of access to the Indian judiciary means that the constitutional promise of justiciability is unfulfilled, particularly so because the poor, who cannot afford quality private education for their children, must be the main beneficiaries of the right. It then deals with possible alternative means the state may provide for the poor to claim the benefits under Article 21A, and identifies the grievance redress mechanism created by the Right to Education Act as a potential system of enforcement. Even though this system is found to be deficient, the book concludes with an optimistic outlook, hoping that rights advocates may, in the future, focus on improving such mechanisms for legal empowerment.
