-The Telegraph   The Meghalaya government today approved the rules for implementation of the ambitious Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, or the RTE Act, 2009. According to the “child-centric” and “child-friendly” act, free and compulsory education should be provided to children in the age group of 6-14 years in Classes I to VII; no child should be held back, expelled or required to pass a board examination...

-The Indian Express   The Right to Education Act, or RTE, has been justly criticised as forcing all of India’s educational establishments into a bureaucratic straitjacket. Its aim is laudable and urgent: to ensure that every Indian child has access to an education that meets certain minimum standards. But figuring out those standards is hard, and this is where Delhi’s tendency to obsessively centralise, divorced from the actual realities of education...

-The United Nations   Up to 3.6 million deaths could be avoided each year in 58 developing countries if midwifery services are upgraded, according to a report released today by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and partners. The study, The State of the World’s Midwifery 2011, estimates that an additional 112,000 midwives need to be deployed in 38 countries to meet their target to achieve 95 per cent coverage of births...

In what appears to be a desperate attempt to escape liabilities following the implementation of Right to Education (RTE), two public schools of the city have shown zero admission in nursery classes. This came to light during scrutiny of annual reports of admissions submitted by schools by the office of district education officer here. Surprised over the act, the DEO has put records of all schools under scanner. DEO Jagjit...

After a long tussle with the Centre over sharing of expenditure, the Uttar Pradesh Government has finally started working on the implementation of the Right to Education Act. The Basic Education Department has been asked to speed up work on finalising rules for the implementation of the Act as well as for conducting eligibility tests for appointing teachers. The government is keen to appoint 80,000 teachers before the Assembly elections are...