Participants at the XLRI debate in Jamshedpur on Sunday. Picture by Bhola Prasad

Right to Education Act — an agent of change in the elementary education system of the country or a mere mode of increasing the literacy quotient of a society — sparked a war of words at Jamshedpur’s XLRI on Sunday.

The biz cradle, which nurtures some of the best business brains of the country, saw the students firing the grey cells of their brains, albeit on a social issue, on Sunday during a national debate on the RTE Act. The debate titled “In the opinion of the house, the Right to Education is merely the Right to Literacy” was organised by the CII Young Indians chapter and saw the participation of eight colleges from across the country.

The seven cradles, apart from XLRI, that took part in the debate were Calcutta’s Presidency College, IIM-Calcutta, Mumbai-based SP Jain Institute of Management and Research and KC College, Mumbai’s LN Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Nashik’s Symbiosis Institute of Operations Management. Each team had two participants.

“Right to Education is a burning issue across the country. The Young Indians of CII work in the field of youth empowerment and social inclusiveness. The main aim of organising this debate was to find out the opinion of college-going youths on the RTE Act that is being implemented since 2009,” said Sanchalak Basu, executive member of CII’s Young Indian chapter of XLRI.

The topic that was hotly debated by the students, in the presence of Jamshedpur MP Ajoy Kumar, who graced the occasion as the chief guest, threw up a number of viewpoints and questions on the act.

Those speaking for the topic believed that the act was not sustainable, as education in general meant not just learning to read and write words till class VIII but also honing the emotional and analytical skills of an individual, beyond the school level.

Those against the motion, however, argued that the RTE was a harbinger of change and an instrument that helped the disadvantaged and weaker sections of the society get educated. They claimed that it brought the economically weaker sections of the society at par with the well-to-do families.

Sources later said, that though XLRI had initially invited 60 colleges from across the country for the debate, only eight could make the cut to the final round. The finalists were selected on the basis of a 600-word essay that they had penned down on the topic ‘Institutions of higher learning are in the business of shaping careers, not minds’.

The Young Indians of CII had also held an essay contest among various school of the city in which Hill Top School had bagged the first prize, followed by Motilal Nehru Public School.

As for Sunday’s debate, Mumbai’s KC College and XLRI jointly shared the top honour, pocketing a cool Rs 15,000 each.