Kendriya Vidyalayas will no longer be the sole preserve of children of government employees. From the next academic year, 981 KVs will start implementing the Right to Education Act and give 25% reservation to poor children in the neighbourhood. Highly placed sources in the HRD ministry said, "RTE will be implemented in KVs. We are working out the details. We have enough time before the next session begins." To ensure...

In the absence of any concrete guidelines from the state governments, schools seem to be clueless about the implementation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act. On Wednesday, a premier school in Gurgaon stalled their nursery admission, saying they will resume the process after they receive guidelines regarding the RTE Act from the government. Delhi Public School, sector-45 in Gurgaon, which had started its admission process from August 2, has stopped it...

The success of programmes like the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDMS) in getting most children enrolled at the primary level has created the illusion that the government is now finally getting down to business and boldly financing education. Spending on education quadrupled between 1990-91 and 2000-01 . Since 2004-05 , the combined expenditure on education by the Centre and states has increased at a blistering...

JHABUA, India — Inside the drab district hospital, where dogs patter down the corridors, sniffing for food, Ratan Bhuria’s children are curled together in the malnutrition ward, hovering at the edge of starvation. His daughter, Nani, is 4 and weighs 20 pounds. His son, Jogdiya, is 2 and weighs only eight. Landless and illiterate, drowned by debt, Mr. Bhuria and his ailing children have staggered into the hospital ward after falling...

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) is world’s most extensive primary education programme, but is it working? The grim reality that India’s Right to Education is at best working in terms of quantity of schools, and certainly not in terms of quality of education, was first proved in successive Annual Status of Education Reports (ASER), brought out by education NGO ‘Pratham’ through nationwide ground-level surveys. Now a Planning Commission evaluation report confirms most...