School meals ensure nutrition for millions of vulnerable children across the world. Almost 370 million children worldwide are covered by school feeding programmes. While 100 million school children benefitted from the noon meal scheme in India prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, countries like Brazil (48 million), China (44 million), South Africa (9 million) and Nigeria (9 million) too run similar programmes for school children. However, an estimated 39 billion in-school...

The World Economic Outlook – a bi-annual publication of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- released in October 2020 has anticipated that the economic progress made by the countries since the 1990s to reduce poverty would be turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic. On top of that, economic disparity would rise too in the post-COVID world because the crisis has disproportionately impacted women, informal sector workers and people with...

-The Hindu India is ignoring the necessity for strong capacity building of the many NGOs engaged in educational improvement For about three decades now, a large number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are intensively engaged in the task of improving elementary education in the country. A paper in the Economic & Political Weekly of May 2005, titled How Large Is India’s Non-Profit Sector?, estimates about three million paid workers in the voluntary sector...

-Livemint.com/ howindialives.com Residents in Hyderabad enjoy the best access to schools and public healthcare facilities among five of the country’s metros, suggests a Mint analysis Millions move to India’s metros in search of a better life, but which metro delivers this the best? Answering this is difficult, but one measure could be access to education and public healthcare. Access to schools and health facilities are the first steps to a prosperous life....

-The Indian Express According to the recommendation, providing a strong foundation for all-round development and lifelong learning are the two central objectives of preschool education. It also says that the commercialisation of pre schooling is detrimental for children’s motivation to learn. The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) released its preschool curriculum on Monday. Among the recommendations is that preschoolers be taught in their mother tongue or home language....