YOUR COVER STORY ‘India’s premier school boards league’ made interesting reading (EW March). India is perhaps the only country worldwide which has 34 school examination boards, each prescribing education of varying quality. Though college managements are required to give equal weightage to grades of all exam boards, it’s well known they accord greater premium to CBSE and CISCE school-leavers.

Your suggestion that India should work towards a common school-leaving exam is not a workable idea as state governments will be unwilling to let go control over state board-affiliated schools. Instead, it’s better to work towards drawing up a restricted common curriculum for all schools in English, maths and science. This will ensure all school- leavers countrywide are equipped with similar competencies in core science and maths subjects. 
Rajesh Mathur
Delhi

No exceptions

IT’S CONDEMNABLE THAT four years after the RTE Act came into force, 92 percent of schools are non-compliant with its provisions (EW March special report ‘RTE Act 2009: Ominous portents’). If governments are unable to provide basic infrastructure and facilities such as drinking water, toilets and boundary walls in its own schools, how will it address more difficult issues such as upgrading teacher quality and improving student learning outcomes? The RTE Forum must immediately demand that the Central government set a new deadline for meeting the infrastructure norms mandated in the Act, and that the punitive action applicable to private schools for not meeting with the Act’s provisions be made applicable to government schools.

It’s up to civil society to ensure that the government is fully accountable for implementation of the RTE Act in all schools — public or private.
Sarita Deshpande
Mumbai

Preschool rankings suggestion

I AM A SUBSCRIBER AND read the special report on the Early Childhood Education Global Conference 2014 (EW February) with great interest. Congratulations for successfully organising this unique conference. It was an enriching experience to interact with so many pre-primary educators from across India. As was the consensus at the conference, there’s an urgent need to draw up common guidelines for preschools and day care centres.

The Mongrace team, with a 50-year-old legacy, successfully nurtures tiny tots who are admitted into leading primary schools in Kolkata. Recently we have ventured into providing day care facilities at our new unit in Newtown.

To EducationWorld, I put forth the suggestion that in the annual EW India Preschool Rankings, preschools with day care facilities should be rated and ranked separately (like boarding schools in your EW school rankings). A day care centre usually monitors and engages with a child for a minimum 10-12 hours per day in comparison with 3-4 hours daily that children spend at a preschool (without day care). 
Chandrika Ramakrishnan
Principal, Mongrace Montessori House and Day Care Centre
Newtown, Kolkata

Words of appreciation

THANK YOU FOR THE new-look EducationWorld (February). We greatly appreciate your relentless efforts to make the magazine attractive and comprehensively informative not only for educators but for parents and students as well. With the new format, EW definitely has a contemporary look. Well-researched articles make it enriching, and awaken readers to real issues related to development and improvement of the education system in India.

It was good to read the special report feature on the Early Childhood Education Global Conference 2014, which provided a national platform for international and indigenous preschool experts to share their knowledge and best practices with pre-primary educators. Such conferences provide opportunities for teachers to keep abreast of new and advanced trends in teaching and enhance their knowledge, skills and abilities. Please consider slotting some space for students’ opinions and expressions as you had done in earlier issues of EW. I believe students are at the receiving end and have many views to share to make education meaningful and engaging.

Congratulations for your dedication and personal attention to every detail to ensure that EW adheres to the highest quality.  
Dr. Augustine F. Pinto
Chairman, Ryan International Group of Institutions, Mumbai