Urgency of Value Education and Primacy of Girl Child : National Agenda for Educational Reforms/edited by Subhash C. Kashyap. 1998, 231 p., $27. ISBN 81- 85565-95-3.
Contents: Preface. 1. Urgency of value education and primary of girl child/P.A. Sangma. 2. Education empowerment for women/Bhishma Narain Singh. 3. The girl child/P.R. Kumaramangalam. 4. Urgency of value education/Kireet Joshi. 5. Education, values and women/C.B. Muthamma. 6. Educating the Muslim Indians/Syed Shahabuddin. 7. Value education in schools/J.N. Sharma. 8. Education and girls/Vandana Sachdev. 9. Party politics in campuses/M.V. Pylee. 10. Problems of implementation/M.M. Sankhdher. 11. Value education, priorities and women/B.M. Sankhdher. 12. University politics/R.D. Sharma. 13. Ferment in higher education/Vijay Kumar. 14. Value education for National Unity/A.K. Merchant. 15. Girl child and value education/Surya Kanta Sharma. 16. Politicization of University education/Annpurna Nautiyal. 17. Education and social intercourse/D. Mishra. 18. Politicalisation of campuses/A. Ranga Reddy. 19. Educational status of Muslims in India/Abdulrahim P. Vijapur. 20. Character development and excellence in education/Mohamed Iqbal. 21. What Ails India's education/I. Shri Krishna. 22. Emerging career opportunities and skill development/Yoginder Verma. 23. The educational failure in Uttar Pradesh/Mohinder Singh. 24. Agenda for educational reforms/Subhash C. Kashyap. Annexure.
From the Preface: "The present may be the most opportune time to bring out a study on educational reforms inasmuch as for the first time there seems to be some evidence of a political will to really to something to accord some priority to education in the national agenda and to attempt a national consensus on an agenda for educational reforms. There is a growing realization among policy makers that without making education near universal, giving primacy to educating the girl child and meaningfully reforming our educational system, no other reforms - constitutional, electoral, administrative, judicial, Parliamentary or economic - can really be sustained.
"The budget for 1998-99 presented on 1 June 1998 has raised the allocation for education by asmuch as 50 per cent and total resource allocation for education is proposed to be raised further to 6 per cent of GDP in a phased manner. The Government has recognised the key role of education in social transformation and announced its intent of making primary education free and compulsory for all children upto the fifth standard and for girls upto the college level.
"The present work is the result of a fruitful collaboration between Politics India and Rashtriya Jagriti Sansthan. It consists of contributions from some of the most outstanding publicmen, educationists, Parliamentarians and scholars. Special acknowledgements and thanks are due to all of them. Some of the papers were presented at the National Conference organised by Rashtriya Jagriti Sansthan and some contributed to Politics India."