Inclusive education has grown into a worldwide process of educating all students, confirming a commitment to universal guidelines and values of inclusiveness and diversity. It involves recognizing and eliminating roadblocks that limits students, especially disadvantaged ones, from participating and flourishing in their endeavors. More importantly,…

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (hereinafter referred to as the RTE Act, 2009) came into effect since 1st April 2010, pursuant to the 86th Amendment to the Constitution of India (2002), which promises elementary education as a fundamental right. It makes legally binding on the State to ensure free and compulsory…

This paper traces the location of the principles of India's Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, in the country's most recent National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, and the documents leading up to the policy. It draws on the capability development approach and critical theory that facilitate understanding education as…

Understanding inclusive education challenges in India involves acknowledging the complex linguistic, cultural, religious, and caste-based diversity affecting marginalized groups. Ambiguity surrounds implementing the "inclusion" concept, necessitating critical evaluation and adaptation to align with India's unique dynamics. Despite…

In response to international agreements, recent Indian legislation has raised expectations that all children, regardless of need or ability, should gain access to formal education that is inclusive and addresses their social and learning needs. Initiatives designed to support the implementation of this legislation have been undertaken in several…

Social movements for public education challenge neoliberal claims that there is no alternative to the market--to the inevitability of the privatisation of education. This article analyses the ways in which education activists in India deploy critical histories in their struggles for a public and common school system. It is empirically grounded in…

The main challenges for education of disabled learners are identifying and serving these learners in India and raising the quality of education for them. While inclusion of children with disabilities into mainstream education has been challenging due to various policy constraints and gaps in implementation, the paper discusses how National…

India's "Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009" compels private schools to reserve a proportion of their seats for free for disadvantaged children. Although controversial, it is idealized as an equity measure for inclusion in and through education. This small-scale study, feeding into a larger research project,…

Interdisciplinary scholarship in recent years has begun to pay attention to the state (re) formation in India under neoliberal conditions. The particularities of this transformation have arisen from the points of re-imagination of the relationship between the post-colonial state and global capital. Working through the contradictions and conflicts…

This volume contains selected papers submitted to the 20th Jubilee Annual International Conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society (BCES), conducted virtually in June 2022. The 20th BCES Conference theme is "Towards the Next Epoch of Education." The theme is focused on problems, discussions, changes, solutions, and…

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…

A Common School System (CSS) had been a long-standing demand in Indian educational discourse since it was recommended in 1966 by the Education Commission. Those who saw the state as an agency of welfarism invoked its implementation on the grounds that it would have allowed equity in education and would have taken care of inequity in the larger…

This paper addresses the politics of researching private education with special reference to the Indian context. Due to a recent increase in privatised forms of education globally and recognition of the private sector by governments, international agencies and researchers as a policy and academic interest, this is shifting ground. The evolving…

The author reviews various factors defining school choice, and school curricula. A key assumption behind the rhetoric logic of school choice is the notion that parents actually choose from schools of varying quality. If parents choose from high-quality schools, choice policy will enhance educational opportunities. If, however, the considered…

India's Parliament passed the Right to Education Act in 2009, which entitles all children 6-14 years old to at least eight years of schooling. This paper examines the cost of achieving this right to education, and asks whether India can fill the financing gap that must be filled if the right is to be realized. The paper notes the very considerable…