Our key achievements influencing government policy
➤ JOSH was part of the National pilot for social audit on implementation of Right to Education Act, in collaboration with National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) supported by Ministry of Human Resource Development, Govt. of India. This pilot was carried out in 10 states, and JOSH was the only organisation to pilot this social audit model in an urban set up.
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➤ JOSH was instrumental in getting a order from the Central Information Commission (CIC) in 2011, the nodal body for the Right to Information Act, that mandated all government schools to open their records to any citizen on the last working day of every month. The records include attendance, budget, details of books and scholarships etc. JOSH approached the CIC because previous to this, there was no provision that would allow parents and community members to ensure transparency and accountability of the school management towards delivery of quality education and proper implementation of the Right to Education Act.This order has now enabled parents and community members to visit the school and also be able to gain access to records and documents
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➤ JOSH was also part of the National Task Force that looked at effective implementation of the Section 4 of the RTI Act, and was constituted by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), Government of India. Using this opening JOSH, along with other partner organizations, formulated templates for proactive disclosure of information for different levels of education system. This template later translated in form of an government advisory and send to MHRD and the state governments by DoPT
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➤ JOSH was part of the sub group on Grievance Redressal of the National Advisory Council (NAC), Government of India. This sub group of NAC worked on formulating recommendations to the Government of India to operationalize a grievance redressal mechanism for the Right to Education Act, 2009.
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➤ JOSH anchored and represented the youth constituency in the post 2015 consultative process. JOSH represented the voices of the Indian youth and demands around primary education at the United Nations post 2015 agenda in UN meetings held in Bangkok (Thailand), Bali (Indonesia), New York (USA), Johannesburg (South Africa) and Moscow (Russia).