This article reports on a Public Private Partnership (PPP) program in South India that provided information and communication technology (ICT) to rural elementary schools. The article examined the current status of rural, government-run elementary schools in India by reviewing reports like the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) in India.…

Small schools have enjoyed rich traditions in the history of education. The Vedic-age gurukula small schools, an abode for children of the privileged few, followed a structured curriculum in the teaching of religion, scriptures, philosophy, literature, warfare, medicine, astrology and history. The rigvedic small schools, which were more…

The large-scale expansion of primary schooling in developing countries has led to the increasing use of non-civil-service contract teachers who are hired locally by the school, are not professionally trained, have fixed-term renewable contracts, and are paid much lower salaries than regular civil-service teachers. This has been a controversial…

In the rural areas of developing countries, teacher absence is a widespread problem. This paper tests whether a simple incentive program based on teacher presence can reduce teacher absence, and whether it has the potential to lead to more teaching activities and better learning. In 60 informal one-teacher schools in rural India, randomly chosen…