Your impassioned cover story ‘State of the Republic Report 2016: Heavy price of education neglect’ (EW January) is a depressing account of independent India’s failures — correctly identified as rooted in neglect of public education. Unfortunately, while all developing countries including China focused on universalising quality primary education, India foolishly under-invested in elementary public education. It’s shocking that the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 was legislated 59 years after the Constitution was adopted. Although it’s true that neglect of elementary education is the “mother cause” of all major problems plaguing 21st-century India, I feel your story is overly pessimistic. Slowly but surely, India is progressing on all fronts including education. The challenge is to achieve both scale and quality in education. Manoj Kumar Delhi Excellent example Thank you for the enlightening Eyewitness Report on Akshaya Patra’s mid-day meals miracle (EW January). ISKCON must be congratulated and thanked for engineering this unique public-private partnership with 10 state governments to provide free mid-day meals to children in government schools. It’s indeed an extraordinary achievement that the foundation has never received a single food poisoning complaint despite having served over a billion meals since 2000. Such a contrast to the government-run mid-day meals programme. Quite clearly, inexperienced and uneducated cooks working in makeshift unhygienic kitchens in dilapidated government schools cannot deliver nutritious meals to children. The way to go for all state governments is to enter into partnerships with private NGOs and organisations such as ISKCON to deliver healthy mid-day meals to children. Malini Deshpande Mumbai Wrong nomenclature Many thanks for publishing the EW India Preschool Rankings 2015 (EW December). However, please note that the name of our school has been incorrectly published in the Gurgaon city league tables as iDiscoveri XSEED Preschool. The correct name is iDiscoveri Preschool, Sector 46. Please incorporate this change in future surveys. Shalini Gauba Founder, IDI Preschool Gurgaon Unwarranted interference I am writing on behalf of the National Independent Schools Alliance (NISA) to protest the scrapping of management quotas and admission criteria in private unaided schools in Delhi by the AAP government. This violates the autonomy of private schools, a fundamental right conferred under Article 19 (1) (g) of the Constitution. This right was reaffirmed by the Delhi high court in 2014. Instead of improving the quality of education dispensed in government schools, the state government is constantly targeting private schools. The abolition of management quotas and minimum admission criteria is not acceptable to private schools and will also create confusion among parents about admission procedures. Amit Chandra National Secretariat, NISA, Delhi Incorrect classification I wish the EducationWorld team a happy and prosperous 2016. I am a regular reader of the magazine and want to thank your team for taking pains to provide valuable information and content every month. However, I want to bring to your notice several discrepancies in the EW India School Rankings 2015 published last September. For the past two years, you have incorrectly placed DAV Public School, Chandrasekharpur,…
