Nobel laureate Amartya Sen's strong criticism of political India for its gross neglect of elementary education over the decades has revived the debate on the quality of school education and also the scope of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 in addressing the problem of “out-of-school” children, who are estimated to number about 14 crore. Speaking at a university function recently in New Delhi, the...

NAGPUR: In a shocking incident a city school issued transfer certificates (TC) to two siblings without showing any cause or informing their parents beforehand. TOI had reported on July 5 that the Mahatma Gandhi Centennial primary school (MGC) in Jaripatka had refused entry to two of its students. After their father filed a complaint with the education department, the school sent the TC for both the kids by post without...

In Uttar Pradesh's most impoverished region, Bundelkhand, government officials feed off not just the living but also the dead. Headlines Today has exposed how corrupt officials exploit the grieving families of farmers, who have committed suicide.   In a visit to Bundelkhand in 2008, AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi repeated a phrase borrowed from his father Rajiv Gandhi: "Out of 100 paise, only 15 paise reaches the poor".   While travelling through this dustbowl...

It's been a year and three months since the right to education became an act (RTE Act), promising free and compulsory education to every child in the age group of 6-14 years. However, the act is yet to be implemented in Uttar Pradesh. The norms of the Right to Education Act say that the appropriate government and the local authority shall establish a school where it is not so established...

When Sujatha’s husband learned that she had conceived just five months after they got married, he became agitated over what he called her "ill-timed pregnancy". To worsen her husband’s anxiety, a test to determine the sex of the foetus showed she was carrying a girl. Sujatha, a public school teacher, and her husband, a civil engineer – who asked that their full names be withheld – are from well-off and educated...