-The Economic Times One of the most heartwarming films of 2011 centred on a child labourer who fitted in exceedingly well with his wealthier classmates at school. While a nasty teacher drives the child out of school in the celluloid imagining, in real life, a nasty education system threatens to drive such kids from the country's elite schools.  Among the most jarring arguments against a clause in the Right to Education (RTE)...

Schools scrambled to get minority status after the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act was framed, say education officials. Records show that after the RTE was implemented in 2009, around 930 schools across the state got minority status from January 2009 to June 4, 2012. Under the Act, all schools except minority unaided schools will have to admit 25% students belonging to economically weaker sections of society. Experts said schools...

As the June 10 deadline for implementing the 25% quota for students belonging to economically weaker sections draws near, the state has launched checks to verify the minority status of schools. According to the Supreme Court judgment, minority unaided schools will be exempted from implementing the 25% reservation under Right to Education Act. Suspecting that big schools might try to weasel their way out of implementing the provisions of the Right of...

Andhra HC judgment redefines the complex relationship between religion, caste and reservations The recent judgment of the Andhra Pradesh high court that sets aside a sub-quota of 4.5 per cent for “socially and educationally backward classes of citizens belonging to minorities” within the 27 per cent reservation for OBCs reminds us of the contested notion of backwardness in the Indian context. Highlighting serious concerns regarding the ways in which social backwardness...

Political parties across the spectrum get into a tangle over an innocuous cartoon in a school textbook THE textbooks of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) are in the news again. This time, it is not history but political science textbooks that managed to get almost all Members of Parliament on their feet on an emotive issue and for reasons that defied logic. One day before the 60th...