The Right to Education Act, which lacks a transformational vision, is geared to preparing foot soldiers for the global market. THE most encouraging and delightful news regarding school education in India since the pro-market reforms began in 1991 came from Erode district in Tamil Nadu recently. To be sure, it is neither about the World Bank-sponsored District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) of the 1990s nor about the internationally funded and...

With the Right of all Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act mandating a 30:1 teacher pupil ratio and laying down minimum qualifications for teachers, state governments have expressed concerns about the lack of infrastructure to provide the required training. Only diploma-holders in elementary education are allowed to teach students from Class I to V and there is a shortage of teachers in this category. As per the HRD Ministry, of the...

Being asked to write on Suresh Tendulkar means that the memories of four tumultuous decades crowd in. They are memories of a genuine teacher, a very careful researcher and an obstinately independent western Indian in Delhi. I always thought of him as a very competent and highly trained economist — but also as an obstinately autonomous Maratha in unfamiliar surroundings. In the 1970s, while examining critiques of the draft Fifth Five-Year...

A year after the Right of all Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act came into effect, four states — Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Manipur — have applied for relaxation of teacher qualification norms, citing lack of teacher training institutes. Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal have already secured relaxation under Section 23 (a) of the RTE Act, which enables them to employ those without the professional qualifications — a...

The state food department has drawn up elaborate plans to develop the infrastructure of the public distribution system (PDS) following chief minister Mamata Banerjee's visit to Khadya Bhavan last week. During the visit, the chief minister asked that a committee comprising trade union members be formed and that they come up with suggestions on how to improve the infrastructure of the PDS scheme and evict corruption from the system. A...