Newly released National Sample Survey data shows that the proportion of students in private educational institutions has increased at the cost of those in government institutions, but private education remains affordable only to upper classes. Meanwhile, expenditure on education, particularly private education, is growing much faster than household budgets. The NSS 64th round (2007-8) records data on participation and expenditure on education after a gap of 11 years. The NSS...

Nine of 10 mud-eating children are in the last stage of malnutrition. Eight of 10 people are deprived of every national social-security net and live with starvation and hunger. The average life span is 40 In April, the Hindustan Times revealed acute deprivation in the Uttar Pradesh village of Ganne, part of the former constituency of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.   Now, a Supreme Court inquiry team that visited the area...

The PPP model proposed in the Eleventh Plan provides for no government or social control over education. It will lead to the privatisation and commercialisation of education using public funds.  Public-private partnership (PPP) has become a fashionable slogan in new development strategies, particularly over the last couple of decades. It is projected as an innovative idea to tap private resources and to encourage the active participation of the private sector...

Suresh Tendulkar created a flutter among policymaking circles when a committee led by him raised the estimate for poor households in the country to 74 million from the Planning Commission estimate of 65.2 million. The former chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council explained why his numbers are more credible in an interview with ET’s Pooja Suri and Amiti Sen. Excerpts: Why did your committee decide to accept the...

The Board of Secondary Education, Assam, will move Gauhati High Court to scrap the State Information Commission’s order that allows students to see their answer scripts under the Right to Information Act. The state information commissioner, B.K. Gohain, issued an order on July 4 last year which said in any public examination, whether conducted by the universities, SEBA, Assam Higher Secondary Education Council or Assam Public Service Commission, the candidates...