Child Rights and Legislation

About this chapter

Child Rights and Legislation is the chapter a Paper 2 candidate (teaching ages 11-14) must master because every Class VI-VIII teacher is a frontline duty-bearer under the RTE Act, POCSO Act and the JJ Act. It opens by asking 'who is a child?' and shows that Indian laws use different age cut-offs — IPC 1860 (7 years), Article 21A of the Constitution (6-14 years), Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act 1986 (14 years) and the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2000 (18 years). It then groups the basic rights of a child into four heads — Right to Survival, Right to Development, Right to Participation and Right to Protection. It examines child rights in the Indian cultural context with sub-sections on parental care, economic exploitation (child labour), sexual abuse (POCSO Act 2012) and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009. Finally it covers the major organisations — UNCRC 1989, UNICEF, WHO, NCPCR (2007) and NHRC (1993) — and the role of the upper-primary teacher in protecting child rights. CTET Paper 2 routinely tests RTE age band, RTE 25% reservation, POCSO definition of a child, JJ Act age, UNCRC articles 19/28/32 and the four rights grouping. The four tests — Practice 15, Quiz 15, Hard 15, Mastery 30 — cover all six sections at CTET depth.