While elementary education, its availability and distribution have shown an improvement in recent years, vast sections such as the poor, girls in rural areas, tribals and some among the scheduled castes remain out of its reach. The new government needs to review existing centrally-assisted programmes to ensure that region- and context-specific issues are highlighted, more particularly that such schemes are tailored to meet the varying needs of a vast and complex country.

For viewing the article, see the attachment.

Based on a case study of the 'Shiksha Karmi Scheme' of Madhya Pradesh which aimed to transform the school teacher, this paper argues that the transformation of the teacher may be much more an issue of his/her working conditions i.e motivation, skill development, school atmosphere, incentive system, supervision etc than recruitment policies.

Literacy campaigns in India have found resistance from two regions – the urban areas of relatively high literacy and the rural areas within underdeveloped regions. This study analyses data to understand residual illiteracy in the context of uneven development. It is published in three parts. The first part analyses the distribution of literacy across states and union territories of India and also across

Literacy campaigns in India have found resistance from two regions – the urban areas of relatively high literacy and the rural areas within underdeveloped regions. This study analyses statistical data to understand residual illiteracy in the context of uneven development. It is published in three parts. The first part analyses the distribution of literacy across states and union territories of India and also across districts, and studies Maharashtra and Goa in depth. This part studies literacy in the context of socio-demographic, health, socio-economic and educational characteristics.