Access to Elementary Education in India

This analytical review aims to explore trends in educational access and to delineate different groups which are vulnerable to exclusion from educational opportunities at the elementary stage. This review has drawn references from a series of analytical papers developed on different themes, including regional disparity in education, social equity and gender equity in education, the problem of drop out, education of the children of migrants, inequity in educational opportunities, health and nutrition, and governance of education, among others. The first and second sections of the paper present a brief review of the state of elementary education in India with particular focus on regional disparities and social inequities in provision. The third section delineates different zones of exclusion, highlighting the nature and magnitude of the problems of access, transition and equity. The fourth section captures the profiles of the varying groups of children and addresses the questions: ‘who is excluded from schooling?’ and ‘why are they excluded?’. In the final section, the paper makes an effort to identify gaps in our understanding which point to the need for further research and also identifies strategies that have had some success in addressing issues of access to elementary education in India

Gender Equity in Education: A Review of Trends and Factors

This review paper draws on recent data to map the access and participation rates of girls relative to boys. This paper offers a critical assessment of findings of different recent researches on school education in India identifying the areas that need further research. The paper reveals that while enrolment of girls has increased rapidly since the 1990s, there is still a substantial gap in upper primary and secondary schooling and gender inequalities interlock with other forms of social inequality, notably caste, ethnicity and religion. The paper concludes with recommendation for implementation of enabling policy to meet the challenges for improving the quality of schools ensuring better opportunities for girls at higher levels of education, notably upper primary and secondary schools

Changing Framework of Local Governance and Community Participation in Elementary Education in India

In recent years, strengthening and better functioning of local governance have become prime concerns of educational reform agenda. Establishment of effective local governance has been part of overall changes in educational governance for several years in many countries including India. It is now widely recognized that effective local governance considerably impacts on access to education as well as the enrolment, retention and learning experiences of children in school. It is in this context, that this paper provides an overview of the changing framework of governance of elementary education and community participation in India with a special focus on its role in improving the participation of children. An attempt has also been made to examine the extent to which grassroots level functionaries and local bodies like panchayat and VEC are able to get involved in decision making processes and different approaches that have been taken by different states in regards to local governance of education. Drawing references from recent efforts made by different states, the paper has tried to establish a link between effectiveness of local governance and issues regarding access, equity and quality of school education. While discussing the changing framework of local governance, the paper critically examines the guiding principles of governance reform from two perspectives. ‘Top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ approaches are discussed, in terms of ensuring the effectiveness of the system and empowering people for active participation in decentralized decision making process

Utilisation of adolescent reproductive and sexual health services in a rural area of West Bengal: A mixed-method study

Introduction: Despite policy actions and strategic efforts for improving the reproductive and sexual health of adolescents by promoting the uptake of adolescent reproductive and sexual health (ARSH) services, the utilisation rate remains significantly low, especially in rural areas of India. This study aimed to assess the utilisation of these services by adolescents in rural West Bengal and its associated determinants. Methods: This mixed-method study was conducted from May to September 2021 in the Gosaba rural block of South 24 Parganas, West Bengal. Quantitative data were collected from 326 adolescents using a pre-tested structured questionnaire. Qualitative data were collected via four focus group discussions among 30 adolescents and key-informant interviews among six healthcare workers. Quantitative data were analysed using SPSS, while qualitative data were analysed thematically. Results: Ninety-six (29.4%) adolescents had utilised ARSH services at least once during adolescence. The factors associated with non-utilisation of ARSH services were younger age, female sex, increasing reproductive health stigma and decreasing parent–adolescent communication related to sexual health. Qualitative exploration revealed that unawareness regarding services, perceived lack of privacy and confidentiality at healthcare facilities and disruption of services post-emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic were some major barriers to ARSH service utilisation. Conclusion: A multi-component strategy, including promotion of adolescent-friendly health clinics, community support interventions associated with motivation and counselling of parents regarding the importance of adolescent reproductive health, is needed to improve the utilisation of ARSH services. Necessary steps to correct the deficiencies at the facility level should also be prioritised

Analysis of the expression of human tumor antigens in ovarian cancer tissues

Biomarkers for early detection of cancer have great clinical diagnostic potential. Numerous reports have documented the generation of humoral immune responses that are triggered in response to changes in protein expression patterns in tumor tissues and these biomarkers are referred to as tumor associated antigens (TAAs). Using a high-throughput technology, we previously identified 65 proteins as diagnostically useful TAAs by profiling the humoral immune responses in ovarian cancer (OVCA) patients. Here we determined the expression status of some of those TAAs in tissues from OVCA patients. The protein expression patterns of 4 of those 65 antigens, namely NASP, RCAS1, Nijmegen breakage syndrome1 (NBS1) and eIF5A, along with p53 and Her2 (known molecular prognosticators) and two proteins that interact with NBS1, MRE11 and RAD50, were assessed by immunohistochemistry (IHC). NASP and RCAS1 proteins were more frequently expressed in ovarian cancer tissues than with normal ovarian tissue and serous cystadenomas and MRE11 was less frequently expressed. When evaluated simultaneously, only NASP and MRE11 remained statistically significant with sensitivity of 66% and specificity of 89%. None of these proteins’ expression levels were prognostic for survival. Together, our results indicate that occurrence of humoral immune responses against some of these TAAs in OVCA patients is triggered by antigen protein overexpression

Absenteeism, Repetition and Silent Exclusion in India

Due to frequent absenteeism from school, children perform poorly which causes repetition which in turn makes children vulnerable to drop-out. This group of problems is called silent exclusion (Lewin, 2007) This policy brief explores the causes and correlations of absenteeism, repetition and silent exclusion in India and suggests policy recommendations. The analysis is based on CREATE research in three clusters in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh

A New Mode of Interaction of Carboxylic Acids with Some N-phenylbenzohydroxamates of Copper(II), Cobalt(II) & Nickel(II)

301-30

Multi-pion production in hadron-nucleus interactions-self—similar or self-affine

398-402<span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height: 115%;font-family:" times="" new="" roman";mso-fareast-font-family:"times="" roman";="" color:black;mso-ansi-language:en-in;mso-fareast-language:en-in;mso-bidi-language:="" hi"="" lang="EN-IN">Two-dimensional factorial moments analysis of multi-particle production in π¯- AgBr interactions at 350 GeV/c with real phase-space partition is performed by considering anisotropy of phase space. It is observed that multi-particle production process is self-affine rather than self-similar. The importance of two-dimensional analysis for the interpretation of data in terms of intermittency is also demonstrated.</span