The Gujarat High Court has affirmed that forcing children below three years to go to preschool is ‘illegal’. The statement came after pleas came in challenging the state government’s decision to fix six years as the minimum age limit to get enrolled in class 1. Parents of children, who did not complete six years as on June 1, challenged the new age limit that has been set from this academic session. “Forcing children to go to a preschool below the age of 3 years is an illegal act on the part of the parents who are petitioners before us,” the division bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice NV Anjaria said. The petitioners “cannot seek any leniency as they are guilty of violating the mandate of the Right to Education Rules, 2012 of the Right to Education Act, 2009”, they observed.
Rule 8 of RTE clearly mentions the admission procedure in preschools. “A bare perusal of Rule 8 shows a prohibition for admission of a child in a preschool who has not completed three years of age as on June 1 of the academic year. Three years of ‘early childhood care and education’ in a preschool prepares a child to take admission in 1st standard in a formal school,” they said. “The right conferred upon a child by the constitutional provision of Article 21A and Section 3 of the RTE Act, 2009 begins after completion of the age of six years,” the court stated. NEP 2020 has pointed that more than 85 percent of a child’s brain development occurs before the age of six. Hence, appropriate care and stimulation of the brain in the early years is necessary to ensure healthy brain development and growth.
