Bhubaneswar: A state-level event discussing actualisation of United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) was organised by Sustainability Foundation at Red Cross Bhawan here Friday.
The Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the event themed ‘taking ahead the agenda of SDG4 and role of government and the CSO’ urged the state government to reopen the state-run schools immediately which was ordered to be closed due to low attendance.
“The state government’s decision to close public schools will lead to forced migration and child labour especially in tribal areas. There are already more than 10 lakh child labourers in the state and about 1 lakh children migrate to neighbouring states,” said Naba Kishor Pujari, founder of Sustainability Foundation.
“The government should ensure that all provisioning aspects are implemented effectively. However, this requires resources and dialogue between policy-makers, practitioners and civil society so that inclusive and quality education for all children can be achieved in a time-bound manner,” he added.
The consultation also stated that the government’s decision of closing down schools is a violation of children’s Right To Education (RTE) as the RTE Act mandates free and compulsory elementary education for every children.
“The RTE calls for equal opportunities in education for children in India and it is the responsibility of the governments to be accountable to make this happen,” said Rampal Singh, President of the All India Primary Teacher’s Federation.
Taking stock of state government’s initiative to achieve SDG4, the CSOs called for a better government-NGO coordination to achieve the goals. Discussion on various aspects of RTE for the children was done by experts and shaped an agenda to actualise ‘inclusive and quality education for all’ in the state.