| Education
in a new India: Fewer gurus, more guides
Emily Wax, The Washington Post,
December 19, 2010
In Neemrana, India for generations,
the professor was the unquestioned god and guru of the
Indian classroom, able to hold forth for hours with
no one daring to ask a question or confess they hadn’t
understood a concept. Students would kneel and touch
the teacher’s feet whenever they met as a sign
of unfaltering respect. Such a level of hero worship
didn’t always create the best atmosphere for learning,
and even senior professors admit that students often
fell asleep during lectures.When the students went off
to work in India’s fast-growing high-tech industry,
they were often too intimidated to offer ideas. This
was especially true for graduates of thousands of new
rural colleges, where memorizing facts was stressed
more than developing critical thinking skills.
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Kerala madrasas ahead of north counterparts: Study
Anubhuti Vishnoi, Indian Express,
December 20, 2010
An NCERT (National Council for Education
Research & Training (NCERT) study terms Kerala madrasas
as “reformed” networks that are introducing
a variety of modern subjects and pedagogical tools —
in contrast to the stereotypical madrasas of north India.The
study titled, A Study of Madrasas of Kerala: An Overview,
has been conducted by Prof Sushma Jaireth, Reader in
the Department of Women’s Studies of NCERT along
with junior fellows Shiraz S and Khadija Siddiqui. While
there is no madrasa board in Kerala, the madarsas —
most are concentrated in Malappuram and Thiruvananthapuram
districts — by and large boast of a reasonable
infrastructure, the study reveals.
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| Guidelines
violate RTE: Panel asks govt to think again
Indian Express, December 18,
2010
The Delhi Commission for Protection
of Child Rights (DCPCR) has sent a notice to Delhi Education
officials, directing them to re-examine the guidelines
for nursery admissions issued on Wednesday, stating
that they violate the Right to Education (RTE) Act.
The Commission noted that “instead of reproducing
the guidelines issued u/s 35(1) of the RTE Act 2009,
under which the Central government is empowered to direct
the appropriate government or local authority (the Delhi
government or the MCD etc, in this case) for the purposes
of the implementation of the Act, the Delhi government
has given its own interpretations and made obvious changes
that directly contravene the provisions of the Act,
which strictly prohibit any screening procedure”.
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School seat hike plan
The Telegraph, December 15,
2010
The Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan is
mulling capacity expansion in its over 1,000 schools
so that general category seats are not affected while
implementing a 25 per cent quota for poor students under
the Right To Education Act. The policy is similar to
that followed by centrally funded institutions that
have added seats to accommodate a 27 per cent OBC quota
without reducing their intake of general-category students.As
of now, nine seats in a class of 40 are kept aside for
SC/ST students, which makes 22.5 per cent of the class
(15 per cent for SCs and 7.5 per cent for STs). The
other 31 are general-category students. In these three
categories, too, there is a sub-category of 3 per cent
for the physically challenged.
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| No more holidays-at-will
for govt school principals
Sandeep Dua, The Times of India,
December 19, 2010
It’s not just students but their
principals also prefer to give school a miss whenever
they please. The education department has found that
many government school principals enjoy leaves and long
holidays without informing the district education officers.
The education department has issued a strict notice
to the principals and said the department will not tolerate
such indiscipline.The report submitted by the monitoring
committee to Director General of School Education (DGSE)
office stated that principals were not performing their
duties seriously and their irresponsible attitude is
causing loss to the students’ education.
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Washington’s faulty thinking about education rules
Harris N. Miller, San Fransisco
Chronicle, December 19, 2010
America won the moon race. Can it win
the higher education race? A smart and innovative strategy
will make this goal attainable, but too many in Washington
fail to recognize that private-sector colleges and universities
– sometimes referred to as career colleges –
are an essential part of the answer. Now educating 12
percent of higher education students, these schools
are the game-changer when a game-changer is badly needed.In
California, private-sector colleges and universities
play crucial roles in educating students. More than
340,000 students in the state, 9 percent overall, attend
career colleges. Two-thirds of these students are minorities,
and almost 80 percent receive financial aid.
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| Meeks wants
vouchers for 50,000 students
Fran Spielman, Chicago Sun-Tiimes,
December 16, 2010
Arguing that Chicago Public Schools
are “broken’’ and that parents deserve
a “choice,’’ mayoral challenger James
Meeks said Wednesday he would offer $4,500-a-year vouchers
to 50,000 low-and-middle-income Chicago families to
use toward private school tuition. If he is elected
mayor, Meeks said he would also offer full-day kindergarten
and character education in all Chicago Public Schools
and double the time spent on reading and math in first
through third grades. Full-day kindergarten would be
financed in part by cutting bonus pay for teachers with
master’s degrees.
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| Stop pretending
Los Angeles Times, December
20, 2010
Two court cases this month put California’s
public schools on notice. In one, the court ruled that
schools no longer could ignore the state’s requirements
for physical education; a survey had found that fully
half the schools in the state were providing fewer hours
of gym instruction than the law requires in an effort
to save money or to devote more hours in the day to
teaching. In the other case, the state reached an out-of-court
settlement in which it pledged that its schools would
stop charging parents for basic supplies, and would
provide parents with a way to challenge what they believe
to be illegal fees.These were the right outcomes. Individual
schools and school districts can’t unilaterally
decide how many hours of gym students will get; physical
activity is important to children’s development,
just as English and math lessons are.
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Research Paper
The relative effectiveness of private and government
schools in Rural India: Evidence from ASER data
Rob French and Geeta Kingdon
ABSTRACT:
One of the many changes in India since
economic liberalisation began in 1991 is the increased
use of private schooling. There has been a growing body
of literature to assess whether this is a positive trend
and to evaluate the effects on child achievement levels.
The challenge is to identify the true private school
effect on achievement, isolating the effect of the schools
themselves from other variables that might boost private
school outcomes, such as a superior (higher ability)
student intake. Using the ASER data for 2005 to 2007
a number of methodologies are used to produce a cumulative
evidence base on the effectiveness of private schools
relative to their government counterparts. Household
fixed effects estimates yield a private school achievement
advantage of 0.17 standard deviations and village level
3-year panel data analysis yields a private school learning
advantage of 0.114 SD.
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Global Education Statistics
Distribution of aid to basic education by levels
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RTE Coalition
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.
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Skill Vouchers - Global Experiences and Lessons
for India
Leah Verghese and Parth J Shah
A study of the role that skill vouchers can play in
catalysing demand for quality skill development services.
This study examines global experiences with skill
vouchers and draws lessons for India from these experiences.
For more click here
Reservation in Private Schools under the
Right to Education Act: Model for Implementation
Shekhar Mittal and Parth J Shah
Through this document the Centre for Civil Society
seeks to highlight the lacunae in the current framework
for 25% reservation for weaker and disadvantaged groups
in unaided private schools and seeks to provide inputs
on effective implementation of the same.
For more click here
SCHOOL VOUCHERS
FOR GIRLS
400 girl children
from poor families of North East Delhi receive school
vouchers for a period of 4 years.
For details visit website
Support Children's Right to
Education of Choice!
DONATE
For more details on how to support, log on to www.schoolchoice.in
or email us at [email protected]
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