This National Advisory Council might not be as powerful as its namesake and as freewheeling in its mandate, but it will oversee the implementation of the Right to Education, the single most important intervention in the field of education since independence. HRD minister Kapil Sibal, who will be the ex-officio chairperson of this 14-member NAC, has cleared the names of eight members. They are Kiran Karnik, former president of NASSCOM;...

In a small hamlet in Andhra Pradesh’s Ghatkesar district, 20km from Hyderabad, Indus Academy is one of four schools offering private education for the poor. Run by Career Launcher India Ltd’s foundation, its three single-storey buildings house around 40 children in the age group of 4-10. The walls of the school are festooned with bright-coloured pictures, and the school boasts a laptop, a television, a DVD player and plentiful study...

As a schoolboy I spent many of my summer vacations in the searing heat of Sarangarh. In this small town (kasba describes it best) in Chhattisgarh, bordering Orissa, I saw multiple instances of the practice of “untouchability”. Not perhaps in its most heinous form, but visible and clear to a child’s eyes; for example, someone merely touching the water pot made the water immediately undrinkable, impure. This was the late...

India’s largest public school chain has accepted that it has failed to improve standards of education in its primary classes two years after it launched a revamp plan, following concerns over learning levels of children. In a letter to all its 981 schools spread across the country, the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) has said an internal survey to assess the revamp has found “shortcomings” on all parameters. The revamp plan...

Taking education to sex workers and prisoners in jail in West Bengal, the Indira Gandhi National Open University (Ignou) has decided to waive fees for them. “To start with, Ignou has decided to select the red light district of Sonagachi here from where 26 sex workers are likely to join courses on healthcare and food and nutrition programmes,” Ignou vice-chancellor V.N. Rajsekharan Pillai said. He said that the Kolkata Regional Centre would...