RIGHT TO EDUCATION IN INDIA:
INTRODUCTION: The citizens of this country have a fundamental right to education. The said right flows from Article 21. Right to free education up to the age of 14 years is a fundamental right. This right is, however, not an absolute right. Its content and parameters have to be determined in the light of Articles 45 and 41. In other words every child/citizen of India has a right to free education until he completes the age of fourteen years. Thereafter his right to education is subject to the limits of economic capacity and development of the State.
FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT TO EDUCATION : Right to education is not stated expressly as a Fundamental Right in Part III of the Constitution of India. However, having regard to the fundamental significance of education to the life of an individual and the nation, right to education is implicit In and flows from the right to life guaranteed by Article 21. That the right to education has been treated as one of transcendental importance in the life of an individual has been all over the world. Without education being provided to the citizen of this country, the objectives set forth in the Preamble to the Constitution cannot be achieved. The Constitution would fail. The obligations created by Articles, 41, 45 and 46 of the Constitution can be discharged by the State either by establishing institutions of its own or by aiding, recognising and/or granting affiliation to private educational institutions
RIGHT NOT ABSOLUTE: Higher Education calls heavily on national economic resources. The right to it must necessarily be limited in any given country by its economic and social circumstances. The State's obligation to provide it is, therefore, not absolute and immediate but relative and progressive. It has to take steps to the maximum of its available resources with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the right of education by all appropriate means. But, with regard to the general obligation to provide education, the State is bound to provide the same, if it deliberately starved its educational system by resources that it manifestly had, unless it could show that it was allocating them to some even more pressing programme. Therefore, by holding education as a fundamental right up to the age of 14 years this Court is not determining the priorities. On the contrary, reminding it of the solemn endeavour, it has to take, under Article 45, within a prescribed time, which time limit had expired long ago .
CONCLUSION: The fundamental purpose of Education is the same at all times and in all places. It is to transfigure the human personality into a pattern of perfection through a synthetic process of the development of the body, the enrichment of the mind, the sublimation of the motions and the illumination of the spirit. Education Is a preparation for a living and for life, when and hereafter. In the context of a democratic form of government which depends for its sustenance upon the enlightenment of the populace education is at once a social and political necessity. Education is enlightenment of the one that leads dignity to a man. To achieve the coveted aim of education Courts in India have recognized RIGHT TO EDUCATION as an implicit right derivable from RIGHT TO LIFE under Art. 21 of the Constitution .