Welcome to a government school where right to education is far from reality
Sruthy Susan Ullas & Shruti Balakrishna, The Times of India, July 19, 2010

The joy of learning is killed right at the entrance to the Government Urdu Higher Primary School at Jigani. Kids balance their satchels as they gingerly tread over the shaky stone slab that barely covers an open drain. Two steps and there’s the classroom – a dark, dingy place that can hardly accommodate 25 students, its dreariness enough to dry up all their impishness.

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Khursheed tells Muslims not to fight phantoms
Vidya Subrahmaniam, The Hindu, July 14, 2010

Minister of State for Minority Affairs Salman Khursheed on Tuesday dismissed the suggestion that the Right to Education Act posed a threat to madrasas. He was reacting to news reports that Muslim religious bodies were apprehensive of the future of madrasas following the enactment of the law. The Act makes “recognition” by the government mandatory for all schools offering elementary education. “Why are they [Muslim religious leaders] fighting phantoms? The Act does not at all intend to undermine madrasa education,” Mr. Khursheed told The Hindu.

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Varsities should face foreign challenges too: Moily
The Hindu, July 14, 2010

Union Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily on Wednesday asked all universities and institutions of higher learning and research to march towards excellence and face challenges within the country and abroad. Addressing the convocation of Sambalpur University here, Mr. Moily also highlighted the need for setting up higher standards to be enforced by professional, scientific and research bodies as well as by the proposed National Council for Higher Education and Research.

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Common test to wean students away from coaching centres: Sibal
Raktima Bose, The Hindu, July 18, 2010

Disapproving of the growing influence of coaching centres that put engineering aspirants through a grind, making it difficult for them to concentrate on their senior secondary examinations, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said on Saturday that curtailing the power of such institutions was one of the objectives of the recommendation for a common entrance test.

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Private firms may insure teachers
Charu Sudan Kasturi , Hindustan Times, July 19, 2010

Private insurance firms may soon have access to a massive, readymade and virtually captive market of school teachers across the country. The government is mulling allowing private insurance firms to compete for a mammoth life and health insurance scheme to cover 62 lakh school teachers across the country. The move was announced last month by Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal. .

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Education bill will open new vistas of India-US cooperation
Hindustan Times, July 13, 2010

The passage of India’s foreign education investment bill could pave the way for unprecedented new opportunities for education cooperation between the US and India, a senior US official said. “Imagine the possibilities: there are already over 113,000 Indian students studying in the United States,” Robert Blake, US assistant secretary of state for South Asia said. “The opportunities for our educational institutions to tap into potentially the world’s largest education market and to provide those services in India, and to help create opportunities for Americans to study in India are enormous,” he said.

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Into the light
Cordelia Jenkins, Mint, July 17, 2010

As the government begins to implement the latest piece in its raft of rights-based legislation, the Right to Education Act, Mint travelled to Uttar Pradesh to take a look at how the state with one of the lowest literacy rates in India is coping in the wake of the new law, which promises every 6- to 14-year-old in India the right to quality education. We visited three schools in and around Lucknow, each catering to a different problem demographic: children of the rural poor, inner-city migrants and girls.

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Right To Education likely to be watered down
Akshaya Mukul, The Times of India, July 14, 2010

In what could end up diluting the Right to Education Act, the government is considering a crucial amendment whereby schools will not be required to admit all applicants and can screen and select most of the students who will gain entry. The “admission-as-an entitlement” provision will be limited to only the poor children in the neighbourhood and seats for them will be pegged at 25%. Put simply, schools will continue to have the right to screen 75% of the admissions, in a major amendment that has been prompted by sustained lobbying by private schools. Public schools across the country were up in arms, insisting that the no-screening clause could seriously affect their quality.

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Balanced Leadership: What 30 years of research tells us about the effect of leadership on student achievement

ABSTRACT: More than three decades of research on the effects of instruction and schooling on student achievement are creating a new science of education. Starting in 1998 McRel began synthesising this growing body of research through meta-analyses of research on student characteristics and teacher and school practices associated with school effectiveness. The results of The first two meta-analyses have provided practitioners with specific guidance on the curricular, instructional and school practices that when applied appropriately can result in increased student achievement.

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To initiate and continue the discussion amongst concerned groups and individuals on the issue of right of education and monitor the implementation of the RTE Act, an RTE Coalition has been formed. Join the coalition to make universal elementary education a reality in India. Log on to www.righttoeducation.in for more information.

James Tooley’s “The Beautiful Tree” bags 2010 Fisher International Memorial Award.
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