-The Indian Express Having faced criticism over objectionable content in school textbooks, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has ruled that all 14,000 institutions affiliated to it must stick to NCERT and CBSE textbooks. All schools will also have to set up websites declaring relevant information, including details pertaining to textbooks being used. Making these conditions for affiliation, the board recently amended its affiliation bylaws to ensure that only properly...

-Live Mint Move part of strategy to counter growing incidence of non-communicable diseases; course to be part of 2014 academic curriculum Concerned by the growing incidence of non-communicable diseases (NCD), the government wants to introduce a new, graded subject in school focusing on health education in classes IV to X. The course will be a part of 2014's academic curriculum and is being designed by the National Institute of Health and Family Welfare...

-The Hindu The Right to Education (RTE) Act turned three on March 31, 2013. It is certainly a short period to examine its efficacy, yet it is enough to give us a fair idea of the hurdles that are being faced and have to be tackled to get positive results. Most of these hurdles are attitudinal. The services of retired teachers are mostly sought for imparting "special training" to out-of-school children...

-The Indian Express April 1 marked the third anniversary of the passage of the Right of Children for Free and Compulsory Education (RTE). There is little argument that the implementation of the RTE in these three years has been less than satisfactory. Deadlines for the enforcement of input norms - infrastructure, pupil-teacher ratios - have come and gone and potentially game-changing provisions, like 25 per cent reservation for economically weaker sections...

-The Indian Express A nationwide study by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to examine the enrolment, access and retention of children with disabilities (CWD) has revealed that while 99 per cent of these children liked attending regular schools, 57 per cent teachers were not trained to understand their special needs. The study has found that special needs of children with mental illnesses were "neither being identified nor...