Hire special educators or face derecognition
Governance Now, September 24 2012

All recognised aided and unaided private schools in Delhi must appoint special educators for children with special needs by March 31, 2013, else they will face derecognition. The Delhi high court said schools must make their buildings/school premises barrier-free to allow free movement/access to such children. A division bench comprising acting chief justices AK Sikri and Rajiv Sahai Endlaw directed all private unaided schools in the capital to hire two qualified special educators as per the mandate of the Right to Education Act (RTE). The bench made it clear that special educators are required not just in government-run or aided schools but also in private schools as they too enroll students with special needs. The HC was hearing a plea by civil rights organisation Social Jurist which sought to extend appointment of special educators to private schools.

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Centre not to bear cost of RTE fee reimbursement
Indian Express, Sept 01, 2012

The government will have to bear the entire cost of fee reimbursement to schools under the Right to Education Act as the Centre will not provide financial aid to any state this year. According to sources, the proposal of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to support states in a 65:35 cost sharing ratio is still pending before the Union Cabinet. “Not just Karnataka, no other state will receive finance from the Centre. That is why the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) has no provision for fee reimbursement in its budget this year,” said an SSA official.

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Supreme Court declines review of right to education verdict
Times of India, Sep 20, 2012

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has declined to entertain petitions seeking a review of its verdict upholding the constitutional validity of the right to education act that mandates 25 percent quota for poor students in private schools. An apex court bench of Chief Justice SH Kapadia, Justice KS Radhakrishnan and Justice Swatanter Kumar said: “The review petitions are dismissed.” The order, passed the day before, was made available on Wednesday. The apex court by its April 12 verdict held that the provision of 25 percent allocation of seats for poor students would apply to all unaided schools, including minority institutions receiving government aid or grants to meet whole or part of their expenses.

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Is prepaying education loan the right decision?
The Economic Times, 24 Sep 2012

Brinda Joseph is a young designer in an export firm. She comfortably manages her expenses with her current salary. She is now considering prepaying her student loan so that she is free of financial liabilities by the time she is ready for bigger purchases, such as a car, in a couple of years from now. Apart from the education loan, Joseph is also paying off a loan she took to buy a consumer durable on an EMI scheme. Has she taken the right decision about paying the loan? Joseph’s decision to prepay her student loan should be based on factors that determine the best use of her income. If her financial well-being is going to be enhanced by paying off the loan, then she should consider it. For this, she needs to evaluate the relative merits of the uses to which her current income can be put.

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Pakistan curious about India’s tryst with right to education
India Today, September 19, 2012

India’s effort to make education a fundamental right has evoked the curiosity of people from across the border. The visa agreement might have hogged the headlines, but external affairs minister S.M. Krishna’s visit to Islamabad last week had an interesting development – Pakistan wants to learn from India’s landmark Right to Education Act. According to HRD ministry officials, the Indian education delegation (led by joint secretary R.P. Sisodia) that had accompanied Krishna has agreed to share the country’s experience in implementing the RTE Act with its Pakistani counterpart.

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Civil society joins hands for Right to Education Act
Times of India, Sep 2, 2012

HYDERABAD: Two years after the Right to Education Act came into effect, many issues still plague its implementation in Andhra Pradesh; namely, poor infrastructure in government schools, which also includes deplorable toilet facilities. Now, joining hands under an umbrella forum, civil society members are demanding effective implementation of the Act and it is the above issues which are being highlighted. Civil society representatives, many of them active in the field of child rights, said that several government schools in the state do not even have proper drinking water facilities.

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Allocation increased for education system in twelfth plan
Economic Times, Sep 21, 2012

NEW DELHI: The growing realisation that sustained high growth requires a strong education system has resulted in an increased allocation for the sector in the Twelfth plan. At last week’s full Planning Commission meeting, Human Resource Development Minister kapil sibal made a strong pitch for more funds. Even though the initial allocation for the sector, both higher and school education, was considerably higher–between 100 to 125 percent rise in funding over the Eleventh plan. It is understood that Sibal argued that the increased allocation, substantial as it was, was not even adequate for business as usual. The minister was of the view that this was the right time to make investments in crucial sectors like secondary education including skill development, to expand the Kendriya Vidyalaya and Navodaya Vidyalaya experience. There are plans to set up 500 new Kendriya Vidyalayas and 378 Navodaya Vidyalaya in the Twelfth Plan.

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Headmaster dismissed for refusing admission under Right To Education Act
Times of India, Sep 8, 2012

NAGPUR: Deepak Bajaj, head master of Mahatma Gandhi Centennial Sindhu High School, Jaripatka has been dismissed from his post by NA Thamke, education officer (secondary), Nagpur, for refusing admission to a student under Right to Education (RTE) Act. TOI had earlier taken up the issue several times. Bajaj had refused admission to Yash Bhagchandani who had applied for admission under RTE. Following this, Thamke issued a notice cum order on August 21 under the said act directing the head master and the management of the school to admit the student. The principal and the management did not pay heed to the order propelling the education officer to pass an order dismissing Bajaj as the principal of the school on September 3. The school management has approached the Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court through a writ petition against the August 21 order. The court has issued notice to respondents and fixed the matter for hearing on September 11.

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As RTE deadline looms, State steps up efforts
The Hindu, September 18, 2012

With March 2013 being the deadline for states to implement the Right to Education (RTE) Act, the school education department is taking various measures to monitor the implementation of the act in the State. According to a senior official, state-board schools across Tamil Nadu have been asked to send a list of students admitted under the 25 per cent quota prescribed by the act, along with other details about students of the school in the first phase of the exercise. “It will cover all state-board schools in Tamil Nadu. We will notify schools from other boards to conduct the exercise in the next phase,” said the official. Another official said that the process of collecting and consolidating the break-up in roughly 3,700 matriculation schools across the State is underway, and is likely to be completed within a week. “We have asked schools to provide the details in the required format and the exercise started three weeks ago,” said the official.

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The Impact of Charter Schools on Public and Private School Enrollments
Authors: Richard Buddin

Abstract: How can charter schools spend less money on average than regular public schools and yet cost taxpayers more overall at the state level? How can charter schools increase educational options and diversity in the public school system and yet decrease options and diversity in education overall? And how can some charter schools outperform regular public schools on average and yet decrease achievement overall? I call these outcomes the Charter School Paradox, but it is only a paradox if we take a very narrow view of the effects of charter schools. When we expand our perspective to include their effects on private education, we find that these seeming contradictions are really the unintended consequences of inadequate, public-sector-only reform. On average, charter schools may marginally improve the public education system, but in the process they are wreaking havoc on private education. Charter schools take a significant portion of their students from private schools, causing a drop in private enrollment, driving some schools entirely out of business, and thereby raising public costs while potentially diminishing competition and diversity in our education system overall.

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SCHOOL CHOICE NATIONAL CONFERENCE

Delivering Education: From Policy to Practice

04 December 2012
The Theatre, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, India

Register Now!

Focus on the under-fives to give all children an equal chance
In December 2010 I delivered an independent review on poverty and life chances to the government. Officially, my report was hailed by David Cameron and Nick Clegg as “marking a vital moment in the history of our efforts to tackle poverty and disadvantage”.
Some of the review’s recommendations, such as efforts to improve parenting skills, have been acted upon. However, the government has shown little interest in following up the review’s key recommendation, despite the interlinked social ills of child poverty and lack of social mobility being high on the political agenda. Unfortunately we continue to tackle these ills in an outdated manner that ignores a huge amount of evidence-based work.

Extreme couponing
IN THE summer of 2011 a 16-year-old girl called Dayana Vazquez-Buquer arrived at the reception desk of Roncalli High School, a nice private school in the south side of Indianapolis. Her parents were Mexican immigrants who could not afford the $8,030 tuition fees. Yet Miss Vazquez-Buquer felt Roncalli would be better for her than her current public school and said she had heard about a new school voucher scheme that would pay most of the fees. She was correct. Today she is a student at Roncalli and on track to attend university.

Photo drive to highlight girls’ right to education
In a bid to identify people denying the right to education to their daughters, Child Rights and You (CRY) has initiated a photography campaign “Click Rights”, wherein people have been invited to take photographs of such girls and upload it on the official website of the NGO. CRY officials said that the campaign will make it easier for them to collect data that would otherwise have taken them years to collect through surveys and hence as an incentive the best

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

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 our website

For more details on how to support, log on to www.schoolchoice.in or email us at [email protected]

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