"So should we test more and more or devise methods to ensure that children do learn? Some of the reasons for lack of learning are also fairly well-known, and they are not just absent teachers."
Vinod Raina, member of the Central Advisory Board of Education, in a column titled ‘Tests are torture’ (India Today, February 4)
"The spirit on which the CCE (continuous comprehensive evaluation) was based has been destroyed, because, as it is interpreted today, it actually commodifies learning."
Jyoti Bose, principal Springdales School, Dhaula Kuan Delhi on CCE, three years after it was introduced in all CBSE-affiliated schools (Outlook, February 4)
"I want every girl, every child, to be educated."
Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot by the Taliban for speaking out for women’s educa-tion, in her first on-camera statement (Time, February 18)
"Maharashtra worked hard to get to the crisis it now faces. Private swimming pools amidst oceans of dry despair. For the rich, there is never a scarcity. For so many of the rest, their hopes evaporate by the day."
P. Sainath, well-known journalist, on 7,000 drought-hit villages of Maharashtra (The Hindu, February 27)
"The finance minister has seized the opportunities for youth by focusing on human infrastructure development — a meta resource for growing India. Allocation of $12 billion in 2013-14 for education, representing one-sixth increase over last year, will unlock the potential of young to contribute to India’s growth for 2020 and beyond."
Sanjiv Kataria, communications counsel for the education sector, on the Union Budget 2013-14 (February 28)
"The budget merely adjusts for inflation and the issue really is how do we get our education plans running."
Madhav Chavan, CEO of NGO Pratham on the 17 percent higher allocation for education in Budget 2013-14 (Times of India, February 28)
"It is difficult in the ninth year of your term to pretend that you are just starting."
N.K. Singh, former secretary to the prime minister, on the Union Budget 2013-14 (Mint, February 28)