Education acts as an important catalyst for socioeconomic and democratic evolution in society and is a critical tool for building an equitable system. In our paper, we have historicized one of the most important educational policies, viz. Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SAMSA) in India that carries large expectations to minimize the educational divide.…

At any one time, about 300 million children of school going age are not in school. Experience indicates that when schooling is disrupted, whether by a pandemic, a natural disaster or other reasons, not all children return to the classroom. In addition, most countries have growing numbers of young people who have not completed schooling, or not…

There exist many actors within the realm of education policy planning and implementation, namely: the policy makers; the national, local and regional institutions engaged in the dissemination and interpretation of these policies; and the educational institutions that implement these policies at the ground level (schools). While schools are largely…

This paper reports on findings from a large sample survey in the states of India that account for two thirds of the children out of school. It then examines the feasibility of the central government's goals to ensure all children complete 5 years of school by 2007, and 8 years by 2010. These goals--more ambitious than the global EFA goals--are…

This analytical review aims at exploring trends in educational access and delineating different groups, which are vulnerable to exclusion from educational opportunities at the elementary stage. This review has drawn references from series of analytical papers developed on different themes i.e. regional disparity in education, social equity and…

Increasing government control, extraconstitutional pressures in governance, appointment and dismissal of vice-chancellors on political considerations and drift of the academic community from serious academic pursuits have undermined the autonomy of Indian universities. This paper analyses from macro-micro angles the causes for the decay of the…

To frame the larger research agenda requires an intimate blending of knowledge of the situations of foreign research universities and those of public research universities in the United States. The first step was to bring together for a two-day symposium a group of scholars and practitioners, some with deep and varied knowledge of United States…

As defined by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), Open Schooling involves "the physical separation of the school-level learner from the teacher, and the use of unconventional teaching methodologies, and information and communications technologies (ICTs) to bridge the separation and provide the education and training". Within this…

This book contains 35 papers on varying aspects of the Indian university system and strategies for its renewal. The papers are: (1) "Introduction: Imperatives of System Renewal" (Ramesh K. Arora and Meena Sogani; (2) "The Universities and the State: Global Experience and Lessons for India" (Malcolm S. Adiseshiah); (3)…