The world has made significant progress in income, education and health over the past 40 years, but the gains have been uneven and in some places war and the ravages of AIDS shortened life spans, according to a United Nations report on Thursday. Over all, average life expectancy around the globe jumped to 70 years in 2010, up from 59 in 1970. School enrollment through high school reached 70 percent...

Even as the Centre is yet to firm up its view about screening of children for admission in residential schools, Andhra Pradesh has successfully given admission to 50,000 children in 600 state government-run residential schools without any entrance test and following the Right to Education Act in letter and spirit. Andhra residential schools, which have been consistently producing good results, have even given reservation higher than 25% stipulated under the RTE...

The Millennium Development declaration was a visionary document, which sought partnership between rich and poor nations to make globalisation a force for good. Its signatories agreed to explicit goals on a specific timeline. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set ambitious targets for reducing hunger, poverty, infant and maternal mortality, for reversing the spread of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria and giving children basic education by 2015. These also included gender equality,...

The human resource development ministry is planning to set up colleges, Kendriya Vidyalayas, Secondary Schools and girls’ hostels in Naxalite-affected areas. The ministry’s higher education department, in a letter written on August 20, has asked the home ministry for details of Naxalite-hit areas. “The information will help in planning how and where to set up new institutions. We will also explore how to provide more grants to institutions in those areas through...

The Centre has agreed to release `400 crore to the Andhra Pradesh government to implement the Right to Education Act from this academic year 2010-11. The decision was taken at a meeting convened by the Union minister of human resource development with the officials of the school education department of various states in New Delhi this week. The principal secretary of primary education, Ms Chandana Khan, had attended the meeting. The Union...