In Idaho, teacher bonuses depend on parents
Boston Globe, 30 October 2011

Parents across Idaho will now play a role in whether or not their child’s teacher gets a raise. Teacher bonuses in more than two dozen school districts statewide will depend to some degree on how well they can engage parents throughout the year, as part of new education changes signed into law earlier this year.

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School Competition Rescues Kids: The government’s virtual monopoly over K-12 education has failed
Hawaii Reporter, 30 October 2011

For years, American education from kindergarten through high school has been a virtual government monopoly. Conventional wisdom is that government must run the schools. But government monopolies don’t do anything well. They fail because they have no real competition. Yet competition is what gives us better phones, movies, cars—everything that’s good. If governments produced cars, we’d have terrible cars. Actually, governments once did produce cars.

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Rural teachers below par, says study
Deccan Herald, 29 October 2011

A study sponsored by the United Nations has found many primary school teachers in the rural areas inadequately skilled for their job. The study notes that most of them are weakest in situations where they are required to find creative ways for an effective teaching. It also observed that the current nature of qualifications and “usual types of teacher training” were not sufficient to guarantee effective teaching. “A much closer look is needed at what teachers know, what they are able to do and how they translate their own capabilities into practice,” suggests the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) on “Teaching and learning in rural India” by Pratham, a non-government organisation.

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State’s experiments with Urdu
Times of India, 31 October 2011

Subsequent to the Centre’s 1913 resolution on educational policy encouraging regional universities, Mysore was the first of the Indian states to establish an institution of higher learning outside the jurisdiction of British administered India in 1916. Hyderabad followed soon thereafter with the Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan issuing a farman on April 26, 1917 to initiate action for the establishment of a university at Hyderabad which eventually culminated in the founding of the Osmania University by a Royal Charter in 1918.

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No more engineering colleges: States to AICTE
Times of India, 31 October 2011

Two decades ago, just a percentage of aspiring Indian engineers found a seat in a tech school. Now, supply seems to have outstripped demand, with lakhs of engineering seats in Indian colleges going abegging. State governments now want the country’s regulatory body to reject fresh proposals for starting any more engineering colleges.

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Indian students continue to shun Australia
Education Times, 27 October 2011

MELBOURNE: Even while the number of international students coming to Australia continues to fall, Malaysia has replaced India as the second largest source of students in the field of Higher Education. As a result, the losses suffered by the Australia international education sector have ballooned to $2 billion in the last one year. While China has maintained its top position as the source country (40 per cent), Malaysia is now on the number two position with a distant 7.5 per cent.

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Rajat’s fall dashes expansion hopes of city school chain
Times of India, 28 October 2011

HYDERABAD: The fall from grace of former ISB chairman and McKinsey director Rajat Gupta has all but dashed the hopes of Sri Chaitanya Educational Group, an AP-based private educational institution operating in the school and junior college sector, from spreading its wings. According to sources, the $1.4-billion New Silk Route Private Equity, an Asia focused PE fund co-founded by Gupta, had finalised an investment of Rs 325 crore (roughly $70 million) in the Sri Chaitanya Educational Group last November. This was seen as one of the biggest foreign investments in India’s education sector.

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UK study visa: Financial statements from 1,900 Indian banks won’t be accepted
Daily Bhaskar, 26 October 2011

Mumbai: Britain on Tuesday published a list of nearly 1,900 banks in India, most of them cooperative, whose financial statements will not be accepted for student visa purposes, a move that is set to affect thousands of Indian students wanting to study there. The new list has just 85 Indian banks whose statements will be accepted. Education consultants from India, however, have welcomed the move saying it will give genuine students a fair chance.

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Crossing boundaries : gender, caste and schooling in rural Pakistan
Research
Authors: Jacoby & Mansuri

Abstract: Can communal heterogeneity explain persistent educational inequities in developing countries? The paper uses a novel data-set from rural Pakistan that explicitly recognizes the geographic structure of villages and the social makeup of constituent hamlets to show that demand for schooling is sensitive to the allocation of schools across ethnically fragmented communities.

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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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