EDUCATION - 2004 - Indian Social Institute

GUWAHATI, FEB. 4. The Axom Sarba Siksha Mission, a society under Education Department of
Assam, is devising a special mechanism for providing education to the children of the militants of
the banned United Liberation Front of Asom and the National Democratic Front of Boroland, who
have been handed over by the Royal Bhutan Government. The State Home Secretary, B.M.
Mazumdar, on Tuesday told The Hindu that the mission had been instructed to arrange for the
education of all those children who were now living with their "combatant" mothers in jails. The
Royal Bhutan Government handed over 27 children, in the age group of two to 12 years, on
December 24 following operation "All Clear" in which 30 camps of ULFA, the NDFB and the
Kamatapur Liberation Organisation were destroyed. The Assam Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi, on
December 30 announced that the Government would take full care of these children and provide
them better education and health care. The children, accompanied by their mothers and other
combatant women, were brought to Tamulpur in Nalbari disrict in two buses from Bhutan's
bordering district Sam-drup Jongkhar, where the Royal Bhutan Army had kept them since
December 15. (The Hindu 5.2.04)
Admission of poor students in schools (11)
NEW DELHI, Feb. 7. — All unaided public schools in the Capital which have failed to admit
poor students as per their lease agreements in return of getting land at concessional rates are
in for trouble in the coming days. The Delhi government's education department is planning to
cancel the recognition or recommend the cancellation of lease of all such unaided schools
which are found to be violating the agreement. The Delhi education minister, Mr Arvinder
Singh Lovely, told The Statesman: "Once we have reviewed the reports submitted by all the
schools, we are going to take stringent action. We are planning to cancel the recognition of all
such schools which are not complying, or we could take over the schools ourselves." This is not
all. The education department is also planning to make it mandatory for all such schools that have
been granted land at subsidised rates to give admission to poor students up to 25 per cent of
their seats from the next academic session. "We are going to make it mandatory for unaided
public schools to comply with the agreements signed by them and admit poor students from the
next academic session," said the minister. (Statesman 8.2.04)
Few India girls get to complete school (11)
New Delhi: Here's yet another confirmation of India's poor record in the field of school education.
The latest South and East Asia regional report of Unesco Institute of Statistics says India has the
highest number of out-of-school girls in South and East Asia. The report says almost 45 per cent
of the 28 million out-of-school girls in East and South Asia are from India. They are children who
are officially of school-going age but do not receive primary education.
Based on the figures of 2000-2001, the report says in India, only half of the children who
enter primary school reach class V. The dropout rate is 53 per cent and survival rate is 47 per
cent, the lowest in South and East Asia. Despite this dismal scenario, public funding in education
has not risen in India. The report says India spent 4.1 per cent of its GDP on education in 2000-
2001. Out of the total government expenditure, India spent 12.7 per cent on education.
Pakistan spent only 1.8 per cent of its GDP on education. Bhutan did better with 5.2 per cent,
Malaysia spent 6.2 per cent and Iran 4.4 per cent of its GDP on education in 2000-2001. (Times
of India 10.2.04)
Cheating a way of life for students in Bihar (11)
Patna: "There are no students in Intermediate colleges of Bihar; there are only examinees," said
a senior official of the Bihar State Intermediate Council while reacting to the recent violence in the
state against measures to stop cheating in the ongoing Intermediate exam. At least two people
died at Sasaram, over 100 km from here, when the police opened fire at the examinees indulging
in arson and violence after their six colleagues were expelled for allegedly cheating at an examination
centre. Several vehicles were set on fire and many government offices and the railway
station vandalised. Earlier at Biharsharif, 80 km from here, the Inter examinees set ablaze the examination
hall of Nalanda College there and tried to throw a senior district official in his burning
vehicle. In fact, over 200 of the 2.43 lakh examinees writing the Inter exam at 243 centres in the
state have so far been expelled. Alarmed over the ugly manifestation of "might is right" by the