The RTE Act, as well all know, was brought into effect in the year 2009. The Act proclaims to guarantee education for every child, aged between 6 and 14, in the country. The Act reserves 25% of seats in all schools for SC/ST, EBC and DG groups, except in private schools owned by non-Hindus. There have... Continue Reading →
UP Govt Support: Kailash Manasarovar vs Haj
There is an article in news18 website today wondering who, in the new BJP Government in UP, will head the Haj department. The article expresses worry about the lack of a Muslim MLA from BJP who could head this department. This question, and the subsequent discussion that emerged on Social Media, encouraged me to look... Continue Reading →
Rahul Gandhi: Building Dalit Leadership?
The Economic Times today published an article claiming that Rahul Gandhi's Dalit Leadership Mission (DLM) has produced results in the recent Uttar Pradesh elections. The key points of the article are as below. Due to seat sharing arrangement with SP, Congress got 27 seats in Reserved Constituencies 18 out of the 27 Congress candidates in... Continue Reading →
UP 2017: BJP and #Core
With the stupendous victory of the BJP in the UP 2017 Assembly elections, garnering over 320 out of the 403 seats, the stage is well set for the party to deliver on its promises. In keeping with the "Development" and "Governance" talk that the party leadership has been making, it is expected that the work... Continue Reading →
2019: Rajya Sabha Equation
The 2017 Assembly Elections results are underway. And it's a landslide 3/4ths majority for BJP in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. BJP is also going to fare quite well in Manipur and reasonably well in Goa (although it may not form the Government). Apart from potentially setting the tone for Lok Sabha 2019 elections, the other... Continue Reading →
Kabristan vs Shamshaan : Clean-up at Home First?
During the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections campaign, Prime Minister Modi very rightly brought up the issue of discrimination being practised by the SP Govt in UP - based on religion and caste. He quipped - "Gaon me kabristan banta hai to shamshaan bhi banna chahiye. Ramzan me bijli aati hai to Diwali me bhi... Continue Reading →
RTE Reimbursement – designed to fall short?
Reimbursement model: The reimbursement of the expenditure incurred by private Hindu schools upon taking in RTE category students is determined by the individual State Governments. However, more or less, all the State Governments have announced a similar method to determine the amount. For e.g. the Karnataka Government has the following high level rule "The total... Continue Reading →
Performance Indicators of some Top Schools
Some great work is being undertaken by Learning Point in providing data about top performing schools in India. Links to a few pages on the excellent website are below. National Public School, Bengaluru Seth M.R Jaipuria School, Lucknow City Montessori Inter College, Gomti Nagar, Lucknow
Telengana: State Funding of Religious Instruction
A quick post since tweeting this potentially make reading very difficult. The Government of Telengana has come up with a new scheme called the "Telengana Minorities Residential Educational Institutions". The aim of this scheme, in the words of the Telengana Government itself, is as follows "The society is to provide high quality education for talented children... Continue Reading →
The Design of RTE – Part II
In the first part of the writeup, we had seen how the RTE Act was constructed to ensure complete autonomy to minority educational institutions with regard to admission of students. In this part, we will attempt to decipher how the RTE Act aims to achieve the same with regard to administration of the institutions. Unlike... Continue Reading →