Right to Education Act – More problems than can be digested

Section 21A of the constitution of India, modified in the year 2010 says “21A. Right to education.—The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years in such manner as the State may, by law, determine. “ The Right to Education Act, 2009 passed by the Government provides for ways for the Government to ensure that free and compulsory education was provided to children in the age of 6 to 14. This was great and I’m sure everybody agrees that such a fundamental right, already applicable in 134 other countries, came too late for children in India. Problems started with the Act itself mentioning that privately owned unaided schools must reserve 25% of their seats for ” belonging to weaker...

CBSE and CCE : Confusing everyone

In the past one year, we have seen a lot of excitement in the school education segment in India, with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) announcing major changes. It started with simple things like doing away with board exams at the Class X (age 16) level and has now reached a stage where everyone’s confused about things like CCE (Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation) The idea behind CCE was very simple – to create a system that does away with “Marks”. Most schools in India follow a 100% Mark system where students getting 92% were treated as less equal than those getting say 93%.   While some parents and teachers still claim that this system gave a clear indication of where the student ranked, the pressure to achieve...