What does it mean for education to be a fundamental right, and how may children benefit from it? Surprisingly, even when the right to education was added to the Indian Constitution as Article 21A, this question barely received any attention. The book identifies justiciability—or, more broadly, enforceability—as the most important feature of Article 21A, meaning that children and their parents must be provided with means to effectively claim their right from the State; otherwise, it would remain a ‘right’ only on paper. The book highlights how lack of access to the Indian judiciary means that the constitutional promise of justiciability remains unfulfilled. It deals with the possible alternative means the State may provide for the poor to claim the benefits under Article 21A, and identifies the grievance-redress mechanism created by the ‘Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009’ as a potential system of enforcement. Even though this system is found to be deficient, the book concludes with an optimistic outlook, hoping that rights advocates may, in the future, focus on improving such mechanisms for legal empowerment.

This book explores the role of public action in eliminating deprivation and expanding human freedoms in India. The analysis is based on a broad and integrated view of development, which focuses on well-being and freedom rather than the standard indicators of economic growth. The authors placehuman agency at the centre of stage, and stress the complementary roles of different institutions (economic, social, and political) in enhancing effective freedoms.In comparative international perspective, the Indian economy has done reasonably well in the period following the economic reforms initiated in the early nineties. However, relatively high aggregate economic growth coexists with the persistence of endemic deprivation and deep social failures. JeanDreze and Amartya Sen relate this imbalance to the continued neglect, in the post-reform period, of public involvement in crucial fields such as basic education, health care, social security, environmental protection, gender equity, and civil rights, and also to the imposition of new burdens such asthe accelerated expansion of military expenditure. Further, the authors link these distortions of public priorities with deep-seated inequalities of social influence and political power. The book discusses the possibility of addressing these biases through more active democratic practice.

The right to education has been recognised as a human right in a number of international conventions, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which recognises a right to free, compulsory primary education for all, an obligation to develop secondary education accessible to all with the progressive introduction of free secondary education, as well as an obligation to develop equitable access to higher education, ideally by the progressive introduction of free higher education. In 2021, 171 states were parties to the Covenant. In 2019, an estimated 260 million children worldwide did not have access to school education, and social inequality was a major cause. The Human Rights Measurement Initiative measures the right to education for countries around the world, based on their level of income.

India has the largest number of non-schoolgoing working children in the world. Why has the government not removed them from the labor force and required that they attend school, as have the governments of all developed and many developing countries? To answer this question, this major comparative study first looks at why and when other states have intervened to protect children against parents and employers. By examining Europe of the nineteenth century, the United States, Japan, and a number of developing countries, Myron Weiner rejects the argument that children were removed from the labor force only when the incomes of the poor rose and employers needed a more skilled labor force. Turning to India, the author shows that its policies arise from fundamental beliefs, embedded in the culture, rather than from economic conditions. Identifying the specific values that elsewhere led educators, social activists, religious leaders, trade unionists, military officers, and government bureaucrats to make education compulsory and to end child labor, he explains why similar groups in India do not play the same role.

This companion presents a comprehensive overview of educational policies in India, tracing the development of modern education from the late eighteenth century until Indian independence. It also studies various aspects of indigenous education and examines the education system under the British administration. Drawing on archival and contemporary sources, the book explores the influence of geopolitics on educational policies and gives an in-depth analysis of debates related to access, curriculum, textbooks, funding, girls' education, missionary education, and the education of the Muslim community. It analyses school and collegiate education, various Education Commissions, and the Government of India Resolutions. It surveys Indian response to modern education and various forms of National Education. It also discusses Gandhi’s educational ideas and brings forth the entire curriculum of Nai Talim. An important contribution to the history of education in India, the companion will be indispensable to scholars and researchers of history, education, history of education, sociology, colonial education, Indian education, and political science.

Papers In The Volume Seek To Explore The Status Of Education In Northeast India And Its Role In The Development Of The Region. Address Issues Relating To Elementary, Secondary, Higher Education, Adult Education, Distance Education And Women Education-Analyses The Reasons For Failure To Achieve The Targets, The Role Of Voluntary Agencies. Useful For Development Agencies And Researchers.

Education is the process of facilitating learning. Knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits of a group of people are transferred to other people, through storytelling, discussion, teaching, training, or research. Education frequently takes place under the guidance of educators, but learners may also educate themselves in a process called autodidactic learning.[1] Any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts may be considered educational. This Book is dedicated to my father - Lalish Kumar