-The Indian Express Chandigarh: Slamming the Punjab government for sponsoring "xenophobia", the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday set aside its "discriminatory" rules, wherein it had allowed additional weightage to rural students for government jobs. A Full Bench comprising Justices Hemant Gupta, Ajay Tewari and R N Raina held the rules framed by Punjab as "illegal, unconstitutional" and beyond its "legislative competence". "State sponsored xenophobia is constitutional anathema and the principle...

-PTI In view of unsatisfactory progress by schools in meeting the March 31 RTE deadline, an education forum today indicated moving to court for ensuring legal entitlement under the Act and demanded Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's intervention in the matter. RTE Forum, a platform of national education networks and teachers, among others said they would demand that the Prime Minister convenes a meeting of chief ministers to ensure efficient implementation of...

-The Indian Express A nationwide study by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to examine the enrolment, access and retention of children with disabilities (CWD) has revealed that while 99 per cent of these children liked attending regular schools, 57 per cent teachers were not trained to understand their special needs. The study has found that special needs of children with mental illnesses were "neither being identified nor...

-The Hindustan Times More differently-abled children are going to school, but the gender gap to access education has risen each year since India launched an ambitious programme to get every child with disabilities into a secondary school. A new NCERT study has shown that 11 out of 13 states that shared data on enrolment of differently-abled students have seen more students with disabilities go to school since 2009-10, when the UPA launched...

-The Times of India As many as 13 states and Union Territories showed a decline in girls' enrolment, while about 10 displayed a dip in overall students' admission painting a dismal picture of inclusive education for children with disabilities. A nationwide study - conducted by the NCERT to assess enrolment, access and retention of students with disabilities found that states like Bihar, Delhi, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, West Bengal among others -...