SC gives six months to states to improve school facilities
Indiaedunews .net, October 5th , 2012

The Supreme Court has asked state governments to provide educational, sanitation and drinking water infrastructure in the schools including separate toilet facilities for boys and girls, drinking water facilities, sufficient class rooms and the appointment of teaching and no-teaching staff within six months. There are 1,096,064 government schools. Out of these, 624,074 schools have girl toilets and 824,605 schools have common toilets for boys and girls.

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Its not about ramps and special toilets alone....
The Hindu, October 7th, 2012

Raj, a Class X student of a government-run Sarvodaya School in the city, has to make several trips, climbing up and down from his classroom on the first floor everyday. There is nothing unusual about a teenage boy making frequent use of the stairs, except that for Raj each of these trips is agonising. Polio struck when he was a baby and with a calliper weighing him down, Raj wishes his classroom was on ground floor.

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Religion- based education schemes violate Constitution: Guj HC
The Indian Express, October 8th, 2012

The Gujarat High Court today held the Government cannot give monetary benefits to any community on the basis of religion as such a move will violate Constitution that bars discrimination on religious ground. A Division Bench of Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice J B Pardiwala made this observation while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), which sought directions to the Gujarat Government to implement a Centre sponsored pre- metric scholarship scheme launched nationwide in 2008. The PIL was filed by a Congress leader from Kutch, Adam Chaki.

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Race and College Admissions, Facing a new test by Justices
The New York Times, October 8th, 2012

Ms. Fisher, 22, who is white and recently graduated from Louisiana State University, says that her race was held against her, and the Supreme Court is to hear her case on Wednesday, bringing new attention to the combustible issue of the constitutionality of racial preferences in admissions decisions by public universities.

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Latin America’s education promise
The Australian, October 9th, 2012

BRAZIL, Chile, Colombia and Argentina stand out as the better performers among the emerging tertiary education markets of Latin America, according to RMIT University researcher Angel Calderon. In a new report, he analyses a clutch of political, economic and other factors crucial for outsider institutions seeking to engage with the region.

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New Market Report: ICT Adoption in Education Sector India 2012
Pre-inside, October 8th, 2012

ICT in education sector consists of the implementation of various IT tools / applications which help facilitate imparting of better and efficient educational services. The market size was estimated to be valued a little over INR 40 bn in 2011. Encouraging Government initiatives and need for better and high quality educational services is boosting the ICT usage in education.

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Mis-reporting and misunderstanding on Gujrat’s Higher education
The Economic Times, October 8th, 2012

Reports have recently appeared in media about Gujarat possessing a very high drop-out rate among women in higher education and about this having increased between 2006-07 and 2010-11. This puzzled me. First, I have some familiarity with Gujarat and this doesn’t match my impressions. That isn’t a very strong argument, since my impressions may be wrong. Second, how did someone manage to get drop-out rates in higher education? Intuitively, drop-out means one joins an educational institution and doesn’t continue.

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Education Law Expert: Language of Charter Schools amendment lesson in subversion
Atlanta Journal, October 8th, 2012

Attorney Thomas Cox represented Atlanta and DeKalb schools in the lawsuit that led to the abolition of the state-run charter schools commission. That 2011 legal victory by school systems prompted the current campaign to change the Georgia Constitution so the state can recreate the commission and go back to approving charters over the objections of local boards of education.

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Hong Kong students fight for the integrity of their education
The Nation, October 8th, 2012

On September 30, around 500 Hong Kong students gathered in front of Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying’s home, donning t-shirts emblazoned “Why CY Cannot Ask Why?” The young activists had one demand: the complete withdrawal of a national education curriculum that, for them, amounts to “brainwashing” dreamed up by the highest functionaries in Beijing.

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Higher Education Reforms in India
Yale SOM Working Paper

Abstract: The number of institutions and enrollment in higher education continue their rapid growth, but the quality of this education remains uncertain. A small number of state-subsidized institutions attract a thin top layer of talent from each year’s cohort. High selectivity of admission to these elite institutions provides a screen valued by potential employers.

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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!

 What does it take to educate India?
India’s school education system is unparalleled in scale and diversity. It encompasses 1.3 million schools, 220 million children and 5.5 million teachers. Eighty percent of the schools are run by the government. They are scattered across 640 districts and each region is dramatically different from the other ecologically, culturally and socio-economically.  Click here to read more

Beyond 25% reservation
Educational issues usually attract headlines when a controversy emerges. Controversies have differing levels of substance, ranging from the truly important to the totally irrelevant. There has been a clutch of such issues that have grabbed headlines in the past months. These include, poor learning levels in our schools, cartoons boiling the feelings of a few and getting expunged, and a list of holidays in a school book determinedly ignoring all holidays other than the ones related to religious festivals of the “majority” community, among other issues. Click here to read more

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]

Please write in with your feedback at [email protected]

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