Thursday, May 27, 2010

Sulabh toilets can help reduce global warming | iGovernment.in

Dear Friends,

Mr. Bindeshwar Pathak has been criticized by many, right from Sulabh's lofty claims to bad management of toilets in Municipal Corporation of Delhi area, but the remarkable work he has done through Sulabh is an important one. Not only the issues of social inequalities have been addressed by his technologies but also they address the pollution of water bodies and global warming issues! And there is no denying the fact that it deserves credit!

Good wishes to Sulabh for doing this for the man kind and repositioning India as believer of "Sarve Bhavantu Sukhmaya Sarve santu Niramaya". As Sulabh is involved in making toielts not only in India but world wide, I have only one request to make. That is to make and promote toilets which are friendly to persons of all ages and typically to children, elderly, ladies and to those experiencing disabilities as it is they who need these services too and are often ignored during the designing such public conveniences.

regards
SC Vashishth

Friday, May 21, 2010

SC concerned over commercialisation of education | iGovernment.in

Dear Friends,

Is not the new approach of PPP a push to commercialisation of elementary education. Should we be calling it a fundamental right to education of each child then?


New Delhi: "Education has become commerce," a concerned Supreme Court observed and added that many of the mushrooming teaching shops in the country do not even have the basic infrastructure.
The court said that education which was never an instrument of money minting has been reduced to a commercial activity.
The vacation bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Justice GS Singhvi, said that the extent of commercialisation of education could be gauged from the fact that in Maharashtra in one year 464 B Ed colleges were opened and in Haryana there are 25 engineering colleges. The intake in the engineering colleges is not even up to 50 per cent.
Justice Singhvi said, "Education has become commerce. Our generation can't change the mindset. Education is something more than commerce." The court said these institutions "don't even have the basic infrastructure".
In an obvious message that the court was not oblivious to the ground realities, Justice Singhvi said, "Very unfortunately we can't close our minds to all that is happening in the country."
The court made this observation in the course of the hearing of an application by the Association of Management of Ayurvedic Colleges seeking the court's directions to permit their students to appear in examinations.
The association wanted that students who have completed one and a half years of classes should be permitted to appear in the coming semester examinations.
At this, Justice CK Prasad said the students knew they were taking admission in the courses which don't have clearance of the Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM).
"We can't compromise on the study of curriculum and nobody can take the exam without completing the course," Justice Prasad said. "Completing one and a half year is not just a matter of duration but to study a curriculum during that period."
Without passing any order on the application, the court said the matter would be heard by the bench headed by Justice RV Raveendran when the court reopens after the summer recess, reports IANS.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Quota in KV for children with Disabilities - Is it in line with Right to Education Act?

Dear Friends,

I often wonder whether in light of the new Right to Education Act, there is any merit to keep quotas in school education for the children with disability! If free and compulsory education it is a fundamental right of every child including those with disability and there are more students seeking admission than the quota fixed of 3%, will the KVs refuse admission to such students.

The KV has still not come out properly on the admission of children with disabilities and unecessarily making news for free education of disabled and setting up a quota for disabled means no sense to us.

Here is the news coverage:

Quota in KVs to be above class strength

NEW DELHI: Reservation in Kendriya Vidyalaya schools will be over and above the strength of a class. This was decided by the board of governors of the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) on Friday.

In fact, the earlier policy was not to let the class strength get affected while giving reservation. But this was amended a few months ago bringing the quota seats within the class strength. However, this created problems for children of central government employees. Since these employees are often transferred, they have to look for admission for their kids in new schools.

There are 17 types of reservation in KVS schools. As per the restored system, reservation will be given to students over and above the existing strength of a class in a central school. According to this system, each class will have 40 seats. But another five students can be given admission under reserved category. The students given admission under reserved category will be above the normal strength.

"The reserved students will not eat away the seats for general category students. The reservation will be above the existing class strength," an HRD ministry official said.

KVS has also put in place a new transfer policy under which those teachers will be given priority for getting transfer if their spouses are working in the school of their choice.

The KVS has also decided to set up one disabled friendly school in each of its 18 regions. These schools will have all facilities to help physically challenged students get education. Besides, teachers of Sanskrit can now switch over to Hindi by appearing in certain examination. This will open up promotional avenues for them, the official said.

Source: Times of India, 15 May 2010