-The Times of India AHMEDABAD: Even as the state government tom-toms its high enrollment rates in primary government Schools in rural areas, it has done little to tackle teachers' deficit or to improve teaching quality in government Schools. The poor quality of education - highlighted by the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2012, released on Friday - is being squarely blamed on the despairing and overburdened primary School teachers in...

-The Indian Express The dismal picture painted in Pratham’s latest Annual Status of Education Report must provoke policymakers to urgently assess and tackle the crisis in India’s primary School education. Pratham, an NGO, has done stellar work these past years in surveying the learning outcomes in Schools countrywide. Its 2012 report details a rapid decline in students’ ability to keep up with the syllabus. It has found, for example, that only...

-The Indian Express Former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala, his son Ajay Chautala and two IAS officers were among 55 people convicted by a special CBI court in New Delhi Wednesday of illegally recruiting teachers in 1999. All 55 convicts in the case, known as the JBT (Junior Basic Trained teachers) recruitment scam, were taken into judicial custody and sent to Tihar jail until January 22, when the court is scheduled...

-Live Mint National Advisory Council seeks an institutional audit of the implementation of the Right to Education programme In yet another signal that the ruling Congress party is getting ready for the next general election, the National Advisory Council (NAC), which sets the social agenda for the Union government, has sought an institutional audit of the implementation of the government’s marquee Right to Education (RTE) programme. NAC is headed by Congress party...

-Deccan Chronicle The Annual Status of Education Report 2012 has revealed the standard of School education is not up to the mark in rural India, and claimed over half the children in these areas were at least three grade levels behind in reading and arithmetic abilities.   The report, prepared by Unicef backed NGO Pratham, claimed of all Class V students only 46.8 per cent could read a Class II text. Though 2012...