-The Times of India In a significant leg up to the government's literacy initiative, a national survey has revealed that almost 23 crore children are studying in 13 lakh schools across the country. There were 228,994,454 students enrolled in different recognized schools of the country with a 13.67% growth in student's enrolment from Class I to XII. This is an increase from 20.30 crore students enrolled in 2002. Encouragingly, there is a...

-The Times of India LUCKNOW: Right to free and compulsory education (RTE) has failed to ensure cent-percent enrolment of children in schools In UP. Of the 28 states, UP has the unique distinction of having the maximum out of school children aged between 6-14 years, including dropouts as well as children who have never attended school. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) findings, published by NGO Pratham, brings to light that...

-The Indian Express Increasing frequency and intensity of protests reflect a deeper crisis in Indian democracy: the failure of civil society In the last five years, citizens have poured out in large numbers at Jantar Mantar and India Gate (and in many other parts of the country) to ask the state to hear their demands. In 2006, marches and sit-ins forced the state to re-examine the Jessica Lal and Priyadarshini Mattoo cases....

-The Indian Express Experts are divided over the stand taken by the State Education department to exempt the unaided minority schools from the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009 while releasing the admission schedule for the academic year 2013-14. While some experts have termed the decision in contrary to the enabling provisions of the Act, others are describing it as in conformity with the Act. In chapter...

-The Indian Express The growing influence on policy issues of activists who call themselves “civil society” is a worrying trend and needs to be objectively analysed. Two recent policy pronouncements will illustrate how government seems to be yielding to their pressure. It is well established that absenteeism of teachers and poor quality of outcomes in government schools is the main factor behind the popularity of private schools with poor infrastructure that cater...