The government of India's Sarvashiksha Abhiyan (SSA) is preparing to provide education to at least 50,000 students in the state, in the age bracket of 5 to 14. This project, 65% of whose cost is being borne by the Centre and the rest by the state government, will educate children who're presently deprived of Schooling. The total cost of the initiative is slated to be Rs1,330 crore for the present financial...

As dusk falls, the sound of children singing fills the air at the SOS Tibetan Children’s Village in Bylakuppe, five hours’ drive from Bangalore in southern India. Night descends on the tidy, stone-paved School campus carved out of the lush jungle. But darkness is dispelled when 20 solar-powered street lights on the campus begin to glow with a steady white light. Thirty dormitories set among groves of coconut palm trees are...

A five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court will hear a batch of petitions filed by several private unaided and minority Schools challenging the government's new Right to Education Act, 2009, which guarantees free and compulsory education for all children between 6 and 14 years of age in the country. Under this law, every child aged 6 to 14 shall have the right to free and compulsory education in a neighbourhood...

The challenge to the validity of the much-hyped Right to Education (RTE) Act mandating free and compulsory education for children was on Monday admitted for hearing by the Supreme Court and referred for adjudication to a five- judge constitution Bench. A Bench of Chief Justice S H Kapadia and Justices K S Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar found the petition filed by an association of Jaipur-based private unaided Schools raising constitutional...

Union Human Resources Minister Kapil Sibal on Monday said the Centre will not budge on provisions of the Right to Education Act (RTE) including the neighbourhood School concept. “There is no question of relaxing any provision. Poor students need an opportunity to study in Schools in their neighbourhood,” Sibal told reporters here. The Union Minister was in the City to deliver the Vithal N Chandavarkar Memorial Lecture on ‘Empowerment through Education’...