Equity and Quality are Two Sides of the Same Coin in India’s School Education

Vimala Ramachandran is Director, Educational Resource Unit, Jaipur and Delhi, a research and consulting group which she established in 1998. She is also a co-founder and Managing Trustee of Health Watch Trust – a network of NGOs, researchers and institutions working on issues related to women’s health, gender, population and development. She began her career teaching Indian politics and political philosophy at a women’s college in Delhi University. Leaving the groves of academe, Vimala Ramachandran worked with the Department of Education, Government of India, from 1987 to 1993 to design an education programme for adult women called Mahila Samakhya – Education for Women’s Equality. She established this programme in Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. Thereafter, Ms Ramachandran has been an independent development consultant and researcher. Besides writing reports and contributing chapters to edited volumes, she has previously edited Bridging the Gap between Intention and Action: Girls’s and Women’s Education in South Asia (1999) and Getting Children Back to School – Case Studies in Primary Education (Sage, 2003). She writes regularly on education in The Hindu and Economic and Political Weekly.