Malnutrition status: don't blame the politicians only

With reference to the report Malnutrition a national shame, says PM (January 11), our political leaders and policy-makers should be ashamed of themselves that even after so many years of Independence, 45% of our children are malnourished. But let's not blame the political class only. The fault is ours too because we don't keep a tab on the usage of funds meant to tackle these issues. Every election, voters get swayed by caste and religion. Instead, we should demand a report card on development issues from the leaders. Only then, will they be forced to take constructive action.

--Gyan Prakash Jain, via email

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Quality education still elusive (The Hindu Edit)

The key finding in a recent study that even top schools in major cities in India suffer from the entrenched tendency to impart rote learning may have some shock value to those who believe that private educational institutions place greater emphasis on quality and holistic education. However, for those closely observing the school education scenario, it is a re-affirmation of a bitter truth: schools in our country are, by and large, quite far from seeing education as a process of learning with understanding, acquiring knowledge through self-discovery and conceptualisation; rather, education remains a mere transmission of information in a rigid classroom atmosphere, where the emphasis is on memorisation and the objective is to rush through a pre-determined syllabus and prepare children for examinations. While on the scholastic side the WIPRO-Educational Initiatives 'Quality Education Study,' which covered 89 schools, shows a fall in learning standards among students in classes 4,...

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