Separate mechanism for teachers’ plaints

Bengaluru: Earlier provisions in the Right to Education Act, dealt mainly with students and the protection of their interests. Now comes the latest amendment to the RTE Act – a new mechanism for solving problems faced by teachers in various state/ CBSE/ ICSE schools.

Teachers are often confronted with issues by school managements and parents in the form of false allegations, baseless complaints and threats. But with the Union Ministry of Human Resources bringing an amendment to the Right to Education Act (RTE) 2010, a grievance redressal mechanism has been set up in schools at the state level.

As per the amendments, The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Amendment) Rules, 2015, 21A, includes a compulsory redressal mechanism for teachers. This states that every school must have a grievances redressal committee for teachers wherein the first level of grievance redressal at schools would be The School Grievance Redressal Committee. A teacher can submit complaints in writing to the convenor or secretary of the school management committee, which will act as the school-level grievance redressal committee.

The committee must examine the grievance instantly and sort it out within 15 days from the date of written representation. In cases of no response or unsatisfactory response, a teacher may move to the Block Level Grievance Redressal Committee, which will be headed by the Block Education Officer.

Separate committees will be set up at the district and state levels. An officer from DPI said these will be set up in the state too after bringing appropriate changes to the state RTE act. “With the implementation, teachers accused in corporal punishment cases will get quick justice with the help of these newly formed committees,” he said.