India

This article reports on the drafting of the twelfth five-year plan, part of which focuses on the Right to Education Act (RTE) of 2009 (more on RTE here). Seeking to accomplish the goals of Education for All (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan), which was launched in 2001, neighborhood schools are to be established with a student-to-teacher ratio of 30:1 by 2013. According to the Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) 2011, “the two major obstacles have been availability of teachers and setting up of neighbourhood schools. Presently, there is a shortage of nearly five lakh teachers while about three lakh teachers, teaching at the elementary level, are untrained.”