| Putting schooling
to the test
Indian Express, April 26, 2011
Amendments to the Indian Constitution are not unusual,
but a change in the Fundamental Rights section is a
rare, momentous occasion. In August 2002, the basic
character of the Constitution was amended to make free
and compulsory education a fundamental right of every
child. It took seven long years after that for the Parliament
to adopt the Right to Education (RTE) legislation, and
the law became operational little over a year ago.
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Good Education
Is a Right, Not a Crime
The Root, April 22, 2011
Start typing “mother arrested”
into Google, and the Internet wastes no time filling
in the rest: “for lying about her address.”
Not “for selling her daughters on Craigslist,”
“for feeding her sons drywall” or “for
locking her kids in the basement like Boo Radley,”
but for trying to educate them beyond the borders of
their block. In the United States of America, educating
your children by any means necessary is a punishable
offense.
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| Madrassas
get only meagre share of pie
Times of India, April 22, 2011
Though Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA),
a national flagship programme to provide quality elementary
education to all children in the 614 years age group
through a time bound approach, extends assistance to
minority institutions like madrassas/makhtabs, these
institutions need more facilities equal to SSA-covered
schools to meet the objective of the Right to Education
Act (RET) in earnest.
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| Rigor Is Better
The American, April 20, 2011
Last week the National Center for Education
Statistics released the latest High School Transcript
Study, which presents information from transcripts collected
from a nationally representative sample of more than
37,000 high school graduates from more than 700 public
and private schools. The study documents the number
and types of courses that high school graduates in the
class of 2009 took and how their course-taking patterns
relate to their performance on the 2009 National Assessment
of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics and science
assessments.
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Education 2.0: The Khan Academy
The Dawn, April 26, 2011
What if your child could get a free, world-class education
from a man with an MBA from Harvard and three Bachelors
degrees in Math, Electrical Engineering, and Computer
Science from MIT? Salman Khan is offering just that
from his wooden desk made of antique telephone poles
in the heart of Silicon Valley.
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On school
choice we must look to the US
The Telegraph, April 26, 2011
One of the most powerful ideas in education
reform is the “voucher”. At present, the
Government spends more than £5,000 per year on
average for a child in a state school (more for secondary
schools, less for primary schools). With a “voucher”,
parents could choose to take that money and spend it
on a place in a private school. Parents would gain a
much greater range of choice overnight, and research
suggests that greater choice leads to better results.
This is the evidence from Sweden, which has served as
the inspiration for Michael Gove’s free schools.
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| Andhra Pradesh
CM approves proposal for rationalization of School:
Student : Teacher ratio
India Education Diary, April 21, 2011
The Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy
today approved a proposal for rationalization of School:
Student : Teacher ratio throughout the State followed
by teachers transfers and Teacher Eligibility Test (TET).
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Looking for
‘impact of scale’, an entrepreneur tries
again
Mint, April 21, 2011
Bangalore: It was 1994. Pradeep Singh,
a Harvard Business School (HBS) alumnus and Microsoft
Corp. veteran asked for a meeting with N.R. Narayana
Murthy and Nandan Nilekani on a little business idea
he had. Back then, when you were from Microsoft, people
listened.
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Research
School Inputs, Household Substitution, and Test Scores
Jishnu Das, Stefan Dercon, James Habyarimana,
Pramila Krishnan, Karthik Muralidharan and Venkatesh
Sundararaman
Abstract: Empirical studies of the
relationship between school inputs and test scores typically
do not account for the fact that households will respond
to changes in school inputs. We present a dynamic household
optimization model relating test scores to school and
household inputs, and test its predictions in two very
different low-income country settings – Zambia
and India. We measure household spending changes and
student test score gains in response to unanticipated
as well as anticipated changes in school funding. Consistent
with the optimization model, we find in both settings
that households offset anticipated grants more than
unanticipated grants. We also find that unanticipated
school grants lead to significant improvements in student
test scores but anticipated grants have no impact on
test scores. Our results suggest that naïve estimates
of public education spending on learning outcomes that
do not account for optimal household responses are likely
to be considerably biased if used to estimate parameters
of an education production function.
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ENABLE
– ARK & CCS’s School Access and Voucher
Programme
ARK’s work in Delhi has identified
many communities where children are facing multiple
social and economic challenges which put them at great
risk of being excluded, dropping out or never attending
school. To address this need ARK has partnered with
Centre for Civil Society (CCS)
to implement ENABLE (Ensure Access to Better Learning
Experiences), a school access and
voucher programme for underprivileged children in Shahdara.Read
more
WISE Awards
2011: Now open for submissions
Innovative educational projects from
all regions of the world and from all educational sectors
may now be entered for the World Innovation Summit for
Education (WISE) Awards 2011 at www.wise-qatar.org.
The submissions deadline is 31 May 2011.
Click here
for details.
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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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Money for RTE
Has enough money been allocated to ensure effective
implementation of RTE? Cast your vote and tell us
your thoughts.
For more click here
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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
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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
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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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