-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In a marker of the growing appeal of English in India's countryside, more than 58% of rural teenagers were able to read sentences in the language during a survey of 30,000 children across 24 states. The survey, for the recently released Annual school education Report 2017 (ASER 2017), also found that an overwhelming majority (79%) of children who could read English also understood the meaning of...

-The Hindu Hundreds of government schools, especially in tribal-dominated districts, have been shut down over the past year. Elizabeth Kuruvilla reports on the closures, the mushrooming of private schools, and the battles waged by tribal villages to keep state-funded local schools open It’s a little past four in the afternoon, the time when schools ring their closing bells in the Hatsesikhal cluster of Odisha’s tribal-dominated Rayagada district. Just before Sekhal Primary School...

-The Telegraph Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh): Many a fear has been expressed over the potential misuse of the Aadhaar card, ranging from privacy violation to online looting to suppression of dissent. Now, a headmaster in Uttar Pradesh has been accused of opening an unforeseen flank by showing the door to 17 pupils on the pretext that they hadn't submitted their Aadhaar numbers. Rajesh Kumar, the headmaster of the government-run Laltapur Primary School in Chandauli...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Centre is examining Finland's school education model, focused on each child learning at her own pace, to see how much of it India can emulate. The Prime Minister's Office sent a note to the human resource development ministry this month asking it to study Finland's system, highlighting the 100 per cent government funding, flexible curriculum and teaching methods, and the high salary of and rigorous training for...

-The Indian Express Study indicates that gender disparities and lack of skills to match aspirations could upset India’s demographic dividend The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), released on Tuesday, is significant for several reasons. In looking at the age group of 14-18, the survey — to begin with — offers insights into the performance of the Right to Education Act, eight years after it made elementary education a fundamental right....