-The Indian Express We have achieved close to universal enrolment. Now the focus should turn to the quality of education. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 states that every child in India has a right to a full-time elementary education of satisfactory and equitable quality in a formal school that satisfies certain essential norms and standards. Even a cursory reading of the law indicates that it...

-The Hindu     No significant difference between rural and urban outcomes The government's own assessment of how much children are learning in schools says that 86 per cent of children in class III can recognise words in their own language and 69 per cent can do simple numerical additions. Maharashtra and the four southern States, Tripura, Mizoram and Manipur perform better than the national average on both tests. The findings of the third...

-The Indian Express A state-wise break up of learning levels, however, indicates that the traditional BIMARU states have much to catch up even now compared to their southern counterparts. Even as independent surveys continue to point fingers at the quality of education being imparted in Indian schools, the National Council Of Educational Research And Training (NCERT) Friday released its National Achievement Survey (NAS) for Class III that indicated quite otherwise. Released...

KEY TRENDS   • According to National Sample Survey report no. 583: Persons with Disabilities in India, the percentage of persons with disability who received aid/help from Government was 21.8 percent, 1.8 percent received aid/help from organisation other than Government and another 76.4 percent did not receive aid/ help *8   • As per National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4), the Under-five Mortality Rate (U5MR) was 57.2 per 1,000 live births (for the non-STs it was 38.5)...

KEY TRENDS   • At the national level, the proportion of government schools having facilities like drinking water was 96.39 percent, boys' toilet was 94.64 percent, girls' toilet was 97.03 percent, boundary wall was 60.12 percent, playground was 56.98 percent, ramp was 71.50 percent, CWSN toilet was 19.59 percent, electricity was 56.45 percent and library was 79.36 percent, according to the Unified District Information System For Education (UDISE) 2017-18 (Provisional) *12   • ASER 2019 ‘Early Years’ data shows a clear...