-The Hindustan Times Around this time every year, news about the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) survey creates a short-lived stir in the media over the dismal performance of children studying in State-run elementary Schools. Pratham - the NGO which produces the ASER reports - carries out this nationwide evaluation of children's competence in reading and arithmetic, and presents the results of children's grade-wise scores. The sample consists of nearly...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Bihar and Jharkhand are the most laggard among states when it comes to implementing midday meals in Schools, child services and other social initiatives, reveals a recent study. In all, the study by IIT-Delhi identified Bihar and Jharkhand as the worst performers for five social welfare programmes which also include the public distribution system, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and social security pensions. The study, which covered 10...

-The Hindu The acceptance of inclusion as a concept amongst teachers is weakened by the complexity they encounter in the classrooms when dealing with children from disadvantaged families Let's consider an issue that teachers in our government Schools grapple with every day. Every class across the country has a significant proportion of children who are first generation School-goers. They come from severely disadvantaged families. The support at home for such children for...

-Livemint.com Experts must stop supporting public Schools that even the poor don't want for their children The problem with public Schools, one is often told, is the lack of sufficient administrative supervision required to bring accountability to the system. Funds to aid learning are often misappropriated, children's learning outcome is abysmally poor, and teachers that sleep and make merry in their classes are far too common in Indian public Schools. It is...

-The Hindu Considering Nobel laureate Amartya Sen's caution regarding the insecurity that people face over a lifetime due to the deprivation of basic education, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2014 calls for a hard look at the situation. Its findings amount to a distressing catalogue of the failures inherent in the pedagogic methods of instruction in vogue. The foremost among them is the overemphasis on a curriculum that...