::Welcome to CCS::

The importance of education in a child's life cannot be exaggerated. We hope that the day is not far away when every child in India would be able to attend a school of her or his parent's choice, irrespective of their ability to pay for it. We hope that poor parents, like other parents, would be able to enjoy the immense benefits derived from a school system based on parental choice and competition among schools.

We believe the direction taken by "The Free and Compulsory Education Bill 2003" is wrong and is sure to have dangerous consequences if passed into law. This is unfortunate and a wasted opportunity. A bill that promoted parental choice and competition among schools would have achieved wonders. Instead, this bill promotes drastic bureacratisation of our educational system. Also, the bill proposes further governmental take over of a large chunk of the private schools and will seriously jeopardise the autonomy and well being of these schools. The result would be corruption, politicisation and further erosion of education in our country.

Our children and our society deserve better. We believe a education voucher based system, coupled with elimination of the license permit raj in the educational system, would ensure quality affordable education for all our children, especially the poor ones.

CCS Campaign

School Choice Campaign

Opinions and Commentary

Government policies should not restrict the growth of private schools:Delhi Education Minister, Arvinder Singh Lovely, June 2006
Public-Private Partnerships for Quality Education in India by Karthik Muralidharan, Seminar, August 2006
"Let all professional colleges set own fee structures: Institutional subsidy can be given to those who cannot afford" by Parth J Shah, Financial Express, 24 August 2005
"National School Choice Campaign" by Parth J Shah, Education World, November 2004
See posts regarding education atSpontaneous Order.

Legislative Analysis

Policy Review

Studies

Overview of School education in Delhi by Soumya Gupta,CCS Working Paper No. 0068, 2003
More Studies

On the Radar

"The Cess In Cesspool"by Ila Patnaik, The Indian Express, Aug 13, 2004
"Looking Beyond Mr Joshi"by Ila Patnaik, Business Standard, March 17, 2004
"Education - The Next Great Business Opportunity" by Jamal Macklai, Business Standard, Jan 16, 2004
"Stop Bullying Children" by Gurcharan Das, The Times of India, Jan 11, 2004
"The Next Big Thing" by Sunil Jain, Business Standard, Dec 29, 2003
"Privatising Education"by Sujatha Muthayya, The New Sunday Express , November 17, 2002

Books and Monographs

View point 8: Private Schools Serving the Poor
College Autonomy Policy, Practice and Prospects Download the entire ViewPoint (PDF)

Related Events

National Conference on Primary Education, December 2001

Resources

Draft of the Free & Compulsory Education Bill 2003 (.PDF)
"Edustats"

More Studies

"Primary Schools in Dharwad: "Amidst Paisa, Power & Politics" by Tejaswini Y, CCS Working Paper No. 0069, 2003
Why Central Exams at All? by M Gopinath & Hari Krishna, CCS Working Paper No. 0070, 2003
Funding by University Grants Commission by Shiva Mishra, CCS Working Paper No. 0071, 2003
Education Vouchers: Is there a model for India? by Eva Weidrich, CCS Working Paper No. 0072, 2003
Of Opening Colleges and Obtaining Licences by Shailly Arora & Sruthijith K K, CCS Working Paper No. 0019, 2002
Licenses to Open a School: It's All About Money by Mayank Wadhwa, CCS Working Paper No. 0001, 2001
Trash the Textbook Bureau by Aditi Kavarana & H B Soumya, CCS Working Paper No. 0005, 2001