The Right to Education Act, 2009, explicitly prohibits physical punishment and mental harassment of students. Corporal punishment persists widely. Understanding why — and what actually changes school behaviour — is the work of school leadership. A contributing voice from policy analysis | Specialist in curriculum, pedagogy, and school leadership This essay addresses one of the […]
The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, places specific obligations on schools and their staff. Most teachers are unaware of the details. The children who most need its protections are in schools where it is most absent. A contributing voice from school practice | Specialist in education equity, school improvement, and teacher professional […]
Children arrive at Class I with enormous differences in oral language development — and these differences predict reading and academic outcomes more powerfully than most teachers realise. A contributing voice from educational research | Specialist in child development, wellbeing, and community engagement This essay addresses one of the most important but under-discussed challenges in Indian […]
Unstructured free play is disappearing from the lives of young Indian children — replaced by tuition classes, screen time, and a school day that leaves little room for the child to be the agent of their own experience. A contributing voice from teacher education | Specialist in curriculum, pedagogy, and school leadership This essay addresses […]
Most Indian school children are required to learn three languages simultaneously by Class III or IV. The linguistic evidence on when and how multiple languages should be introduced has direct implications for foundational learning. A contributing voice from child development | Specialist in education equity, school improvement, and teacher professional development This essay addresses one […]
What happens to a child in the first year of formal schooling shapes how they relate to school, learning, and themselves for years — sometimes for life. India’s Class I classrooms deserve far more attention than they receive. A contributing voice from policy analysis | Specialist in child development, wellbeing, and community engagement This essay […]
India’s network of Anganwadi Centres is remarkable in its scale. What happens inside them — the quality of interactions between workers and children — is the most important and least-monitored variable in early childhood development. A contributing voice from school practice | Specialist in curriculum, pedagogy, and school leadership This essay addresses one of the […]
A curriculum is a story about whose knowledge, history, and culture matter. When large groups of children cannot find themselves in their textbooks, the message is clear — and it affects their engagement, identity, and learning. A contributing voice from educational research | Specialist in education equity, school improvement, and teacher professional development This essay […]
India has invested in school libraries for decades. Many of them are locked, unstocked, or stocked with books children cannot access. The conditions that produce a genuine reading culture are specific — and none are very expensive. A contributing voice from teacher education | Specialist in child development, wellbeing, and community engagement This essay addresses […]
Classroom drama is one of the best-evidenced and least-used pedagogical tools in school education. The research on what it does for language development, empathy, and engagement is compelling — and it costs almost nothing. A contributing voice from child development | Specialist in curriculum, pedagogy, and school leadership This essay addresses one of the most […]
Vishal Jain
