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...

Rs. 3,000 each awarded to 78 persons who had worked at three sites After a long struggle, 78 persons who had worked at three sites in Jharkhand under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, but had not been paid, have secured compensation for their ordeal. Deputy Labour Commissioner Mahendra Murmu awarded Rs. 3,000 per worker at a Labour Court here on Monday. This is seen as a breakthrough for the aggrieved workers,...

Bihar has a refreshing new motif: girls in uniform on shiny new cycles, confident and assured, simply because they go to school. A little over three years ago, the Bihar government launched the Mukhyamantri Balika Cycle Yojana—the chief minister’s cycle scheme for girls. The plan entitled girls in class IX and X to a free cycle from the state or Rs2,000 to buy one—mirroring a scheme started by Tamil Nadu, but...

The shortage of doctors and paramedical staff for the country's poor and downtrodden is assuming alarming proportions. According to the latest data on rural health statistics, a huge number of posts sanctioned for medical staff in primary and community health centers have been lying vacant. Consider the case of primary health centres. The vacancies stack up to 5,224 doctors, 7,243 health care workers and 1701 health assistants, respectively. The situation...

Four months after the Right to Education (RTE) Act came into force, guaranteeing every child up to 14 years of age free and compulsory education, the Delhi High Court on Thursday delivered its first landmark ruling by according the relief to 874 children, 350 of them differently abled. Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw allowed the petition of advocate Ashok Aggarwal of NGO Social Jurist and directed the Delhi government and its schools...