The Right To Education In India

This is one of the first volumes to comprehensively discuss resource constraints and institutional challenges in realizing the Fundamental Right to Education (RTE) in India. It looks at various aspects of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), the primary vehicle to implement RTE and a flagship programme to universalize elementary education in the country. The book presents a comparative perspective across regions and states and evaluates the effective delivery of SSA at the grassroots level. Using rich empirical data, not yet available in the public domain, it provides valuable lessons for the planning and financing arrangements of SSA-RTE between the centre and the states, and towards understanding access, equity and quality of education. The work will be a major resource for scholars and researchers of education, economics, public policy, development studies, and politics.

What does it mean for education to be a fundamental right, and how may children benefit from it? Surprisingly, even when the right to education was added to the Indian Constitution as Article 21A, this question barely received any attention. The book identifies justiciability—or, more broadly, enforceability—as the most important feature of Article 21A, meaning that children and their parents must be provided with means to effectively claim their right from the State; otherwise, it would remain a ‘right’ only on paper. The book highlights how lack of access to the Indian judiciary means that the constitutional promise of justiciability remains unfulfilled. It deals with the possible alternative means the State may provide for the poor to claim the benefits under Article 21A, and identifies the grievance-redress mechanism created by the ‘Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009’ as a potential system of enforcement. Even though this system is found to be deficient, the book concludes with an optimistic outlook, hoping that rights advocates may, in the future, focus on improving such mechanisms for legal empowerment.

The right to education has been recognised as a human right in a number of international conventions, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which recognises a right to free, compulsory primary education for all, an obligation to develop secondary education accessible to all with the progressive introduction of free secondary education, as well as an obligation to develop equitable access to higher education, ideally by the progressive introduction of free higher education. In 2021, 171 states were parties to the Covenant. In 2019, an estimated 260 million children worldwide did not have access to school education, and social inequality was a major cause. The Human Rights Measurement Initiative measures the right to education for countries around the world, based on their level of income.

Vermeersch and Kremer examine the effects of subsidized school meals on school participation, educational achievement, and school finance in a developing country setting. They use data from a program that was implemented in 25 randomly chosen preschools in a pool of 50. Children's school participation was 30 percent higher in the treatment group than in the comparison group. The meals program led to higher curriculum test scores, but only in schools where the teacher was relatively experienced prior to the program. The school meals displaced teaching time and led to larger class sizes. Despite improved incentives, teacher absenteeism remained at a high level of 30 percent. Treatment schools raised their fees, and comparison schools close to treatment schools decreased their fees. Some of the price effects are caused by a combination of capacity constraints and pupil transfers that would not happen if the school meals were ordered in all schools. The intention-to-treat estimator of the effect of the randomized program incorporates those price effects, and therefore it should be considered a lower bound on the effect of generalized school meals. This insight on price effects generalizes to other randomized program evaluations. This paper--a product of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management 2, Africa Technical Families--is part of a larger effort in the region to increase our understanding of the impact of programs aimed at reaching the Millennium Development Goals.

The present volume seeks to review education in India through a matrix of nation-building, democratization process, identity, power, social and economic divisions, and social hierarchies. The book revisits the vision of education of some of the great Indian philosophers and leaders, deconstructs some of the seminal documents on education in India, brings out the significant role played by the people’s movement in shaping education, and analyses the trends and progress in the implementation of educational programmes and policies. Please note: This title is co-published with Aakar Books, New Delhi. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Maldives or Bhutan)

This volume examines how the public and private domains in school education in India are informed and mediated by current market realities. It moves beyond the simplistic dichotomy of pro-state versus promarket factors that define most current debates in the formulations of educational reform agendas to underline how they need to be interpreted in the larger context. The chapters in the volume present a series of conceptual and empirical investigations to understand the growth of private schools in India; investigate the largely uncontested claims made by the private sector regarding provision of superior quality of education; and their ability to address the educational needs of the poor. Further, the book looks at how the private–public dichotomy has been extended to professional identity of teachers and teaching practices as well. Rich in primary data and supported by detailed case studies, this volume will be of interest to teachers, scholars and researchers dealing with education, educational policy, school education and public policy. It will also interest policy makers, think tanks and civil society organisations.

The Constitution Of India Came Into Force On 26Th January, 1950 And Since Then Indigenous Ideas Have Been Introduced, New Experiments Have Been Conducted And New Thrust Areas Have Been Identified In Different Aspects Of Education In India To Keep Pace With The Developments In Society, Politics, Economics, Emotions And Sentiments At The National And International Levels. A Vast And Fast Developing Country Like India Is Bound To Encounter New And Recurring Problems Of Educational Expansion, Total Quality Management, Planning, Administration, Supervision, Curriculum, Evaluation, Teacher Education, Special Education, Integrated Education, Leadership, Ecology And Guidance Services In Schools.This Book Is An Humble Attempt To Understand Some Of The Afore-Said Problems Of Education In Their Right Perspectives And To Find Out Solutions In The Light Of Recommendations Of Various Committees And Commissions, Policies, Reports And Publications Of Mhrd, Ncert, Niepa, Ncte, Other Institutes, Frontline Educationists And Authors Of Eminence.The Distinguishing Features Of The Book Are Lucidity And Simplicity Of Language, Uniformity And Precision In Organisation Of Facts And Figures With Scope For Reading Between Lines And Beyond Suitable For Students Of Teacher Education Institutions And University Departments Of Education.

This book examines the policy shifts over the past three decades in the Indian education system. It explores how these shifts have unequivocally established the domination of neoliberal capital in the context of elementary education in India. The chapters in the volume: • Discuss a range of elementary education policies and programs in India with a focus on the policy development in recent decades of neoliberalism. • Analyse policy from diverse perspectives and varied vantage points by scholars, activists, and practitioners, illustrated with contemporary statistics. • Introduce the key curriculum, assessment, and learning debates from contemporary educational discourse. • Integrate the tools and methods of education policy analysis with basic concepts in education, like equality, quantity, equity, quality, and inclusion. A definitive inter-disciplinary work on a key sector in India, this volume will be essential for scholars and researchers of education, public policy, sociology, politics, and South Asian studies.

Thousands of children from minority and disadvantaged groups will never cross the threshold of a classroom. What can human rights contribute to the struggle to ensure that every learner is able to access high quality education? This brilliant interdisciplinary collection explores how a human rights perspective offers new insights and tools into the current obstacles to education. It examines the role of private actors, the need to hold states to account for the quality of education, how to strike a balance between religion, culture and education, the innovative responses needed to guarantee girls’ right to education and the role of courts. This unique book draws together contributors who have been deeply involved in this field from both developing and developed countries which enriches the understanding and remedial approaches to tackle current obstacles to universal education.