After right to education and information, citizens will soon get right to clean drinking water and sanitation. In a new draft National Water Policy, the water resources ministry has suggested that the access to safe drinking water and sanitation be regarded as a right. Around one-third of the Indians don't have access to clean drinking water and more than half of the country's population to clean sanitation. Only 42.2% people in Jharkhand and...

Third report in three months to highlight lack of quality education in India; poses risk to knowledge hub hopes Nearly two years after the Right to Education (RTE) Act was introduced with the promise of providing free and compulsory education to all primary school children, the learning outcome in the country has actually deteriorated in terms of quality. In yet another wake-up call for policymakers, the 2011 Annual Status of Education Report...

-The Telegraph   The quality of elementary education is falling in rural schools almost two years after education was made a fundamental right in April 2010. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2011, a survey of government and private schools in rural areas conducted by the NGO Pratham, shows a decline in schoolchildren’s “learning outcome levels” compared with the previous year, whether in reading or arithmetic skills.  However, students of private schools have...

-Live Mint Private school enrolment in the 6-14 age group has gone up to 25.6% in 2011 from 18.7% in 2006 If one wants to understand the dismal state of school education in India, there is no better place to look than the pages of the Annual Status of Education Report 2011 (ASER). Forget the detailed statistics, just look at the maps displaying basic school education facts. They reinforce only one fact:...

After the introduction of Right To Education (RTE) Act, the student-teacher ratio has disturbed the equilibrium in municipal corporation-run schools in Ahmedabad leading to a shortage of nearly 500 teachers. Nearly 100 teachers are required in Urdu medium schools because many from Urdu schools, despite existing shortage, have been moved to Gujarati medium schools. The situation is precarious particularly in Urdu and other language mediums because of the special nature of language...