State control of school education in colonial and post-colonial India

Abstract

Studies have indicated that local governments and communities can play a legitimate role in governing publicly-funded schools, although debates continue in relation to where and how decentralization operates across different contexts. In the Indian context, it has been argued that educational decentralization received a significant boost following the constitutional amendments of 1992, which mandated local government school management in rural and urban areas across India. However, drawing from the history of school management in India, we show that in colonial India, government-funded schools were locally managed by district boards and municipal bodies. By studying the education Acts of Indian states post-independence, we show that nearly all states adopted a centralized management system with state-controlled appointment and transfer of teachers and funding. Nationally, about 77% of government schools are managed by the state Department of Education, while only 18% of schools are controlled by local bodies. By analyzing sections of the Right to Education Act of 2009, we show that while the Act advocates for decentralized management of schools, it fails to devolve funds and functionaries to the local level. We argue that India's constitutional structure, weak fiscal devolution to local bodies, centralized appointment of functionaries, bureaucratic mistrust of local authorities, fear of local elite capture, upper caste control, and teacher union lobbying have led to centralized state control of education.

Keywords

education governance educational policy school management local government decentralization India

Introduction

One of the central questions in education governance is, who ought to control the education system? Who should decide about the administration, financing and planning of the curriculum? What functions of the system should be decentralized, and what impact will these alterations have on teaching-learning activities, classroom procedures and student performance? What level of autonomy should different levels of governance have in spending and appointing the functionaries? (Majumdar, 2002; McGinn et al., 1998; Zajda, 2007). Decentralization takes a key position in these debates.

In the context of education governance, decentralization refers to delegating power and decision-making from the national government to subnational and local governments, and to local communities for the use and allocation of human and capital resources. Many educationalists and international agencies like UNESCO have advocated for educational decentralization, highlighting that it improves educational effectiveness by addressing local needs, making planning more participatory, empowering local governments, and enhancing the efficiency of educational institutions (Govinda and Bandyopadhyay, 2006; McGinn et al., 1998; Varghese, 1996). Scholars have argued that decentralization also improves community engagement in schools, promotes inclusive education, and enhances learning outcomes (Donnelly et al., 2017). Education planners strongly advocate for education policy reforms to move from a centralized command-and-control mode to a decentralized participatory mode of governance.

The history of schooling across the world (with some exceptions like China) shows common transitions in school management. Initially, education used to be a largely private and religious affair, overseen locally. The age of enlightenment and the emergence of modern nation-states post-French Revolution and European colonialism resulted in states taking primary responsibility for education (Katz, 1976; Nurullah and Naik, 1943; Porcher, 2020). Although decentralization has its challenges, there is a wide consensus that schools in large nation-states with a federal structure should be managed by the people closest to them. Most countries have evolved to entrust school governance to the local government and community, while higher-level governments still maintain control over areas like curriculum management, teacher qualifications, and school standards.

We show that the trajectory has been very different in India, with the states taking greater control of education. An analysis of the centralized government database of all recognized schools in India (about 1.5 million), Universal District System of Information (UDISE) 2021–2022 (Department of School Education, 2022) shows that 77.27% of the public schools (funded and managed by the state, central, or local government) are controlled by the state governments. In many large states like West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala, more than 90% of government schools fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of Education (DOE) of state governments. Only in Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Andhra Pradesh, is the ratio reversed, with 90% of public schools being under local bodies (LB). Even then, teacher appointment and funding continue to be controlled by the state government in these states, thus crippling the autonomy of local governments. This paper traces and analyzes the multiple waves of centralization and decentralization in colonial and post-colonial India, and the strong push for state control of education post-independence.

Materials and methods

This article is based on the study of data on school management in colonial and post-colonial India. We support our findings with a critical examination of education policies, reports, and documents in colonial and post-colonial India. In particular, we study school management from the Indian Education Commission (1882), Hartog Committee (1929), Kher Committee (1952), and the current Universal District System of Information (UDISE) data for 2021–2022. The UDISE database, developed by the Department of School Education under the Ministry of Education, Government of India, encompasses comprehensive information on all recognized schools across India. It includes data on parameters such as the number of schools by category, school management and location, school enrollment, teachers and their qualifications, infrastructure details, and more. We analyze the UDISE data at both national and state levels, categorizing it by management and schooling types. Additionally, we conducted a document analysis of the committee and commission reports which have argued for greater state control of education or devolution of more powers to the local level. Moreover, the Right to Education Act and the New Education Policy have been critically examined.

Decentralization framework

Decentralization is often defined in terms of four levels of transfer of authority: deconcentration, delegation, devolution, and privatization (McGinn et al., 1998; Rondinelli et al., 1983). Deconcentration assigns executive responsibilities to lower units closer to people, without transferring decision-making power. Delegation transfers state authority to a lower level for a specific time period that can be withdrawn at the will of the central authority. Devolution is the most powerful form of decentralization, entrusting LB with constitutionally derived statutory powers to make and implement decisions without approval from the higher levels of government. Devolution should follow the principle of “subsidiarity,” according to which, functions that can be performed best at a lower level should be assigned to that level (Donnelly et al., 2017; Varghese, 1996).

Effective decentralization requires the delineation of roles and responsibilities of each level (functions), supported by adequate funds and appointed individuals (functionaries) to execute those functions (Surie, 2010). Thus, the three Fs of decentralization—Funds, Functions, and Functionaries are critical to examine any decentralized system (Johnson, 2003). In education, funds could come from various sources like local taxes, Cess levied with taxes, and intergovernmental transfers. Cess is a form of additional tax levied by the government on basic tax to help generate additional revenue for education funding. On the other hand, intergovernmental transfers enable the central government to make fiscal transfers to subnational governments, or for state governments to LB, to ensure they have adequate funding capacity. Functionaries such as teachers and staff should be close to the school community that they are serving and should possess adequate knowledge and the capacity to perform these functions. This article evaluates education devolution under the three Fs in post-colonial India.

Education decentralization debates: OECD and India

Evaluating the effectiveness of educational decentralization varies across and within countries, as the context, scale, and mode of decentralization differ. There are differences in the levels of control of education in terms of funds, functions, and functionaries. The capacity to execute the allocated functions also varies across different levels of government, communities, and local school management authorities. For example, Anderson and Young (2018) review research on school district practices associated with school performance and student achievement over three decades in the USA and show that district practices highlighted as essential for fostering school level effectiveness are virtually the same today as they were 30 years ago (Anderson and Young, 2018).

The OECD Education Indicators in Focus (2018) provide an analysis of education decentralization and its effectiveness in OECD countries. Since the early 1980s, OECD countries like Australia, Canada, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have implemented reforms to transfer more decision-making powers to local and school levels, allowing schools greater autonomy in managing curricula and resources. The report shows that only about a third of OECD and partner countries centralize the majority of educational decisions at the national or state level, while approximately half of the countries primarily make decisions at the local or school level. There are significant variations across countries: in Turkey, only 8% of decisions are made locally or at schools, compared to over 90% in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and Scotland. The autonomy and level of decision-making also vary by the type of decision. For instance, schools or local authorities handle 63% of decisions regarding the organization of instruction across OECD countries, yet only about 20% of these decisions are made with full autonomy. The report argues that an increase in autonomy has sometimes resulted in added pressure on schools and local stakeholders. For school autonomy to be effective, several critical components are necessary, such as a robust national framework coupled with a clear strategic vision, targeted training programs for school heads and teachers, strong accountability measures, and fostering a collaborative atmosphere both among and within schools.

Hanushek et al. (2012) highlight that the impact of school autonomy on student achievement significantly depends on the level of economic and educational development of a country. By analyzing international panel data on PISA tests, they show that in developed and high-performing countries, school autonomy positively affects student achievement. In contrast, in developing and low-performing countries, school autonomy tends to have a negative effect on student achievement. However, the only low-income country included in the database is Indonesia, which may be an outlier.

The effectiveness of decentralization in education outcomes depends on fiscal capacity and functionaries who manage them at the local level. Taking “local expenditure as a percentage of total public expenditure” as an aggregate measure of decentralization, across countries, India allocates only 3% of total government expenditure is incurred by local government, whereas it is 26% in USA, 40% in Japan, and 51% in China (Muralidharan 2024; Ren, 2015). Even in public employment, India lags significantly behind the US and China in terms of local employment. Only 10% of total employees are in local government, whereas in the US and China it is 60% and 65% respectively.

In the developing country context, Bardhan (2002) highlights the inconsistent effectiveness of decentralization. Despite its theoretical advantages, practical outcomes vary and often disappoint due to challenges such as weak governance, power imbalances, and elite dominance. He argues that effective decentralization requires careful design to prevent elite capture and ensure equitable resource allocation at different levels of education bureaucracy (Bardhan, 2002). In a recent paper, Kameshwara et al. (2024) examine the impact of decentralization in school management on student achievement in India. Contrary to many expectations, the study finds a negative association between decentralization and student achievement. They stress the complexity of decentralization's impact, shaped by local socio-economic factors, politics, and administrative frameworks. Success hinges on administrative capacity and alignment with local contexts (Kameshwara et al., 2024).

Results

School management in India

India has the largest schooling system in the world, with 1.5 million schools and nearly 265 million enrollments in grades 1–12. This even surpasses China which has a third of India's schools (∼514,000) with similar enrollment (OECD, 2016). Indian schools are under different government, private, and quasi-governmental managements.

India has evolved a complex schooling system run by different management to cater to its vast and diverse population. Broadly under the umbrella of private and government schools, there are several types of school managements which fall under each category. Government schools or public schools (1.02 million, enrolling 140 million children) are the most prevalent type of schools in India. These schools typically have very nominal school fees and follow state-set guidelines in terms of curriculum, medium of instruction, assessment methods, and student-teacher ratios, etc.

Analysis of the UDISE 2021–2022 reveals that roughly 55% of these schools are managed by the education departments of various state governments and union territories. In most states, public schools are primarily managed by the DOE—state government (54.73%), followed by local body schools (LBS—managed by urban and rural local governments; 12.8%), the Tribal and Social Welfare Department (3.05%), and a small fraction of elite schools run by the Union government (0.24%) such as Kendriya Vidyalaya, Navodaya Vidyalaya, and Army/Railway schools. Among private schools, the largest segment is private unaided schools, followed by government-aided private schools. About 3.44% of schools are Madrassas and unrecognized schools (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Schools under different managements in India and its states and union territories.

Government-aided schools are owned privately but managed by the government. Private schools, on the other hand, are fully owned and controlled privately. Private-unaided (recognized) schools form 20% of schools, while government-aided schools constitute a small 5.5%. Only about 13% of schools are managed by the LB in rural and urban areas, including Gram panchayats, Zilla Parishads, Municipalities, and Municipal Corporations (see Figures 1 and 2). Such an extensive schooling system calls for a robust management system, comprising different governing bodies both at the state and sub-state (district/local) levels.

Figure 2.

Schools managed by local bodies as a percentage of the total schools in different states and union territories of India.

State-wise variation of school management

There are substantial variations across states. Figures 1 and 2 show that Uttar Pradesh, the largest Indian state with more than 200 million people (Census 2011 figures), has a minuscule percentage (0.09%) of LBS. Other large states like Madhya Pradesh (80 + million people; 0.05% LBS) and Karnataka (60 + million people; 0.05% LBS) also have very low LBS. Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, and Gujarat are the only four states which have delegated more than 50% of their school management to LBS. Delhi shows a mix of LB (∼30%) and DOE schools (∼18%). Rajasthan has 27% LBS and 10% more DOE schools (∼36%), while the small state of Mizoram has 9.7% LB schools. Barring these, LBS constitute less than 3% of the total number of schools in other states.

If we restrict our analysis only to government-managed schools (excluding private-unaided, private-aided, unrecognized schools, Madrassas etc.), we get 1.03 million schools of which there are 77.27% DOE, 18% LB and 4.3% Tribal/Social Welfare department schools (see Figure 3). We split the state-wise analysis into three categories: (i) high (<70% LBS), (ii) medium (40–70% LBS), (ii) low (0–40% LBS) LB states. Only four states fall under the High LBS category. Maharashtra and Gujarat show more than 90% LBS. Telangana and Andhra have high LB schools, at 90.6% and 81.6% respectively. Only Delhi and Rajasthan fall under the medium LBS category. Delhi government schools show greater LB (61.64%) than DOE schools (36.5%), whereas Rajasthan has a higher DOE (55.71%) than LBS (41.77%). All other states fall under the low LB category.

Figure 3.

Percentage of government schools in six states with the highest local body school management.

Further analysis of UDISE 2021–2022 on school management by education levels reveals that states which have been selective about devolution, prefer letting the LB manage mainly primary and upper primary schools. In Appendix 1-Table A1, we show the school management, split by levels of education levels in India, and states with high, low, and medium LB schools.

This brings us to the next few questions: What do local body schools mean exactly, and how much autonomy do they possess? Why is there such deep state-wide variation among school management and school levels? Can local bodies run schools without interference from the state government? Can they hire teachers and appoint their own staff? We address these questions in the coming sections. Before we proceed, we give a brief background of the schooling system in Colonial India and discuss the early attempts at decentralization marred by the upper caste and elite capture of schools.

Centralization and decentralization in colonial India

Indigenous education in 18th–19th century India was highly decentralized to the village level without state support. The introduction of modern western education by missionaries and its expansion under the British Raj necessitated some centralization. Education policies were initially formulated at the provincial level and later consolidated into a “national” policy under the Education Dispatch of 1854. Waves of decentralization occurred between the 1870s and 1930s, led by Lord Mayo's fiscal decentralization and Lord Rippon's resolution, devolving education to the district boards and municipalities. This was followed by the devolution of powers to Indians under the Indian Councils Act, 1909, and the Government of India Act, 1919, resulting in compulsory education Acts at the local level. However, the tides turned backwards after the Hartog committee review, which opined that decentralization was ineffective in India. This was followed by the Sargent Committee, which expressed a similar view (Hartog P J and Auxiliary committee of Indian Statutory Commission, 1929; Hunter and Indian Education Commission, 1882; Kher and Naik, 1954, Ch 2; Mondal, 2017; Nurullah and Naik, 1943).

There is a striking contrast between school management in British India (which included Burma) in the 1930s and the present day. The Hartog Committee report of 1929 (Auxiliary Committee of the Simon Commission) shows that while majority (57%, largely run by Indians) of the schools were government-aided schools (see Figure 4), among the government-managed schools, local schools comprising the district (30%) and Municipal boards (2.9%) were dominant. Only 1.4% of schools back then were run by the provincial government, with wide variations among provinces. Central Provinces, Assam, United Provinces, Punjab, and Bombay had 70% or more schools run by District boards or Municipal bodies. In Bengal, close to 80% of the schools were government aided in 1929 (in Bengal), which has now come down to 5.5%. Post-independence, most aided schools have either been taken over by the government or have been privatized (Hartog and Auxiliary Committee of Indian Statutory Commission, 1929: 33–35).

Figure 4.

Educational institutions by management in different provinces of British India and Burma in 1929.

Caste discrimination and elite capture in Indian schools

Despite the stated religious neutrality and impartiality in school admission and management (Rao, 2018), schools managed or aided by the Imperial British government continued to be discriminatory in practice. British officers like, J. W. Neill noted that although upper caste Hindus and Muslim teachers did not prevent lower castes from attending school, they often treated them with disrespect, seating them outside or subjecting them to insults (Rao, 2018). Jyotirao Phule, distinguished social reformer and activist for anti-caste and women's education from modern day Maharashtra, wrote extensively on the state of schools and discrimination by upper caste teachers in schools. In his testimonial to the Indian Education Commission (Hunters commission) in 1882, Phule questioned the effectiveness of the British educational policies and its inability to control discrimination in schools. He stressed that primary education in state-aided schools were largely controlled by upper caste Brahmins, who segregated children by caste and actively obstructed the academic progress of the lower social classes (Guha, 2010; Indian Education Commission, 1883). The Indian members of the district and sub-district boards created under the 1882 Rippon resolution were dominated by landed Indian elites and upper caste members (Chaudhary and Garg, 2015; Tinker, 1968).

The primary architect of the Indian Constitution, leader, and the greatest icon of the upliftment of depressed classes, Dr B. R. Ambedkar (himself a Mahar-Dalit caste), experienced discrimination in his school. He was made to squat in a corner on a piece of gunny cloth, and upper caste teachers would not touch their notebooks (for fear of being “polluted”). In his high school, Dr Ambedkar was not allowed to learn Sanskrit, which was reserved for Brahmin boys (Keer, 1954).

Centralization in post-colonial India

The process of deliberating the Constitution for free India started in December 1946. The Constituent Assembly (CA) tasked with framing the Constitution included many core Gandhians, who espoused Gram Swaraj (village self-rule) and discussed granting constitutional status to village Panchayats. However, Dr B. R. Ambedkar (Chairman of the drafting committee of the CA) staunchly opposed this, fearing upper caste politics in villages. Former prime minister Jawahar Lal Nehru also remained silent on the issue (Singh, 2009). The final Constitution adopted a highly centralized two-tier federal system with the Union and the states, totally neglecting the third tier of local governments (CI-Editorial Team, 2022).

Indian bureaucrats, both during the British period and post-independence, deeply mistrusted LB. They were concerned about upper caste domination and also believed that “modernization” required top-down engineering (Awan and Uzma, 2014; Verma, 2023; Agnihotri, 2023; Tinker, 1968). Those who argued for developing a “scientific temper” were apprehensive about the uneducated local elite. Women in the CA shared similar sentiments, worrying that the elitist local upper-caste males might hinder women's access to education.

The Indian Constitution granted rights irrespective of class, caste, or sex, abolished untouchability, and paved the way for numerous affirmative action measures in education and employment. However, upper castes, who are the majority and historically advantaged in education, income, and jobs, still dominate Indian bureaucracy, including education (see for e.g.: “Caste as Power” in Jodhka (2012)). Despite improvements for all groups, villages remain segregated by caste, with upper-caste men often leading in areas not designated for reserved quotas. Sharan's “Last Among Equals” (2021) explores how upper-caste local elites impact access to government employment schemes like MNREGA and hinder marginalized groups’ access to public welfare programs. The fear of elite and upper caste dominance in village politics and bureaucracy steered the currents of centralization and led to tight control of education until the mid-80s and early 90s, as highlighted in the following reports and policy documents. A timeline of these developments is illustrated in Figure 5.

Figure 5.

A timeline of the currents of centralization and decentralization in post-colonial India.

At the dawn of the Indian republic (1950s), primary schools in India were still largely controlled by LB. In urban areas, Municipalities and Corporations managed the primary schools, whereas in rural areas they were under the District/Union/local boards or village panchayats/Janapada Sabha's (see Table A1 in Appendix for details). This was set to change in the coming decades as many committees and the state education acts diminished LB control over education.

The Kher Committee Report (1954) was critical about devolving primary education administration to LB, citing potential teacher harassment and the need for safeguards (Kher and Naik, 1954). Conversely, the Balwantray Mehta Committee (1957) advocated for strong LB with authority over developmental programs, including education, laying the groundwork for Panchayat Acts (Mehta, 1957). The Kothari Commission (1966) recommended state responsibility for school education, collaborating with local authorities but warned against local control misuse and suggested district-level management for teacher appointments to prevent political interference (Kothari et al., 1966: 885). In the late 1960s and 1970s, economists pushed for district-level planning, culminating in the Planning Commission's multi-level planning framework in 1984, which included primary and secondary education (Varghese, 1996). The National Policy on Education (1986) and the Programme of Action (1992) aligned with these recommendations, leading to the establishment of the District Primary Education Program (DPEP) and District Institutes of Education Training (DIET), although these remained centrally directed (Sharma and Ramachandran, 2018; Varghese, 1996). More details on the views and recommendations of these committees are provided in Appendix 2.

Centralization under the state education acts

Education was a state subject under the Indian Constitution till 1976. After that, it has been included in the concurrent list, making it a joint responsibility of the states and the Union government. The expansion of education came with the state control of education bureaucracy, teachers, curriculum, and regulation of private schools. Between the 1960s and 1990s, many states (including Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra to some extent, Gujarat, and Andhra Pradesh) passed education acts which greatly reduced the role of LB in education governance. For example, The Karnataka Education Act of 1983 gave immense power to the state to regulate general education and to take over local authority schools, all in the name of “public interest.” The West Bengal Primary Education (WBPE) Act of 1973 created the West Bengal Board of Primary Education with sweeping powers to consolidate and regulate government schools (see Appendix 3 for a description of state government of acts). Thus, the state education acts in most states determined the fate of LBS management and control.

Constitutional devolution to local bodies

The 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments heralded a new era of democratic decentralization in India. It gave constitutional status and statutory powers to the three-tier Panchayats and urban LB. It also provided a legal framework for local self-government institutions. The devolved functions included the implementation of schemes related to primary and secondary education, vocational education and nonformal education (listed in the 11th schedule).

To strengthen school governance under the 73rd the 74th amendment, the Committee on Decentralized Management of Education 1993 of the Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE) recommended transferring administrative control of schools to panchayats, including the appointment and supervision of teachers, while providing them with adequate financial support. It also called for the state to lay down guidelines on personnel management (teaching and non-teaching), fearing conflict between the teaching and non-teaching staff with LB (CABE Committee and Moily, 1993).

Decentralization under the 73rd and 74th Amendments has been criticized for being largely unsuccessful and insufficient. State governments hold the discretion to devolve subjects listed in the 11th and 12th schedules (under articles 243G and 243 W). On average, only 21 out of 29 functions are delegated to the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) by the states. Despite this delegation, PRIs lack the resources and staff necessary to carry out their duties. They lack funds, have limited ability to raise funds, and are limited in how they can use these funds. They also have limited power to recruit their own staff (functionaries), and even after recruitment, they have very little control over these functionaries, as they stand accountable only to the state government. Kerala is the only state to have fully transferred administrative control of staff to PRIs. Many municipalities are unable to collect taxes, record expenditures, or provide services at the local level (Surie, 2010).

Educational decentralization raises concerns about local elite capture and the marginalization of Dalits and other vulnerable communities, due to India's stratified caste structure. The fear is that upper caste control over resources and administration would ultimately lead to women and lower caste communities being denied education, disrupting social order and leading to a potential “backward” slide (Muralidharan, 2022).

Funding of education—state control

Funding for school education today involves a complex mix of contributions from the Union government, state governments, LB, the DOE, and primarily the Ministry of Education. Additionally, various state departments and Union ministries, such as Women and Child Development, Tribal Welfare, Social Security, Minority Welfare, Panchayat Raj, and Rural Development, allocate funds for education through special schools (Khaitan, 2021).

The RBI Report on Municipal Finances (2022) in India notes that “Indian cities are emaciated financially and are far from being able to generate the resources required for providing good quality infrastructure and services to their citizens.” The revenue receipts of Municipal Corporations were estimated to be very low at 0.72% of the national GDP in 2019–2020, with wide variations across states. To put this in perspective, Kapur (2020) notes that local government expenditure is 3% of the total government expenditure in India, compared with 27% in the United States and 51% in China. Thus, the direct expenditure on education by LB is alarmingly negligible in the present day and is not even assessed in most education budget analyses.

Functionaries: teacher appointment

The structure of public employment in India is highly skewed towards Union and state governments, with very little local government employment (constituting only 12–14% of all government employees during 1980–2012), as compared to about 50% in USA and China. Local government employees decreased from around 3200 per million in 1971 to 2100 per million in 2011 (Kapur, 2020).

Teacher appointment in India

Teacher recruitment in almost all states is state-controlled, with hardly any scope for appointment and transfer by local authorities. Muralidharan (2017) notes that Indian states are severely understaffed in front-line service delivery, including education. States are struggling to fill existing positions, let alone new positions. India's teacher shortage in 2014 was estimated at 586,000 at the primary level and 350,000 at the secondary level (Pathak, 2014). Local governments neither have authority nor fiscal capacity to recruit regular teachers.

According to Ramachandran et al. (2017), teacher recruitment processes in the states can be categorized into two broad types: (a) systematic and efficient, and (b) politically driven. Either way, the appointment process is still top-bottom. Most Indian states (except Karnataka) have employed contract teachers over the past 15 years. Rajasthan, an early adopter of this model, stopped hiring contract teachers in 2014 (Ramachandran et al., 2017). Contract teachers, also known as “para-teachers,” serve two main purposes: (i) addressing teacher shortages in rural areas and enabling local governments to hire teachers on short-term contracts, and (ii) helping state governments employ more teachers with limited financial resources. Due to strict teacher qualification norms, low pass rates in Teacher Eligibility Tests and high salaries for regular teachers, recruiting qualified teachers for rural areas has become challenging. Even if a qualified teacher is appointed to the village school, they may feel no social connection to the community, resulting in a high level of teacher absenteeism.

Right to Education Act (2009)—funds, functions, and functionaries

In the 1990s, the National Policy on Education (NPE) (1986) and Programme of Action (PoA) (1992) laid strong emphasis on achieving universal elementary education before the end of the millennium. Pressure from the Judiciary, civil society, and international agencies, with a final push from the 86th Constitutional Amendment, led to the enactment of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE Act) (MHRD-GOI, 2009). The RTE Act is the sole Central Act in India on elementary education. Its goal is to ensure that every child between 6 and 14 years completes elementary education. This is achieved by dividing responsibilities among national, state, and local governments, including people's participation, while specifying their individual roles and functions.

The RTE has created highly centralized regulations by specifying norms on neighborhood school establishment, classrooms, toilets, teacher qualification, and pupil-teacher ratio. It also devolves some functions to the local authority to maintain school records, as part of SMCs to create school development plans and establish neighborhood schools within its jurisdiction. It allows teacher recruitment to be done by the appointing authority of the schools (state/UT or the local government). We assess the RTE's education centralization and decentralization under the three Fs—Funds, Functions, and Functionaries, to all three levels of government, as summarized in Table 1.

Table 1.

The Right to Education Act, 2009: allocation of funds, functions, and functionaries to different levels of government.

RTE sections	Task	Category	Union/Central Govt.	State/UT Govt.	Local Govt.
6, 8(b), 9(b)	Establish schools in neighborhoods according to requirement	3F	Responsible depending on jurisdiction	Responsible	Somewhat responsible
8(a), 9(a)	Provide free and compulsory elementary education to every child between the age 6–14 years	3F	Responsible depending on jurisdiction	Equally responsible	Somewhat responsible
8(d), 9(f)	Provide infrastructure including school building, teaching staff and learning equipment;	3F	Responsible depending on jurisdiction	Equally responsible	Equally responsible
7(1) to 7(5)	Financial responsibilities	Fund	Grant-in-aid to states	Share responsibility	No
7(6)(a)	Curriculum framework	Function	Responsible	No	No
8(f) 9(e)	Ensure and monitor admission, attendance and completion of elementary education by every child	Function	Responsible depending on jurisdiction	Equally responsible	Equally responsible
29	Curriculum and evaluation procedure	Function	Responsible depending on jurisdiction	Responsible depending on jurisdiction	No
9(d)	Child record upto age of 14 years	Function	No	No	Responsible
8(e), 9(g)	Provide training facility for teachers	Function	In some cases	In some cases	Responsible
9(k)	Ensure admission of children of migrant families	Function	No	No	Responsible
9(l)	Monitor functioning of schools within its jurisdiction	Function	No	No	Responsible
18	Recognition of private schools	Function	Depending on jurisdiction and type of school	Responsible	Responsible
19	Norms and standards of schools	Function	Responsible	Somewhat responsible	No
21, 21(2)(b)	School Management Committee and School Development Plan	Function	No	No	Responsible (along with parents and teachers)
21(2)	Monitoring utilization of grants	Function and Fund	No	No	Responsible - but no discretionary power to spend
7(6)(b)	Standards and teacher training	Functionary	Responsible	No	No
7(6)(d)	Technical support and capacity building	Functionary	Responsible	No	No
23	Qualifications for appointment and terms and conditions of service of teachers	Functionary	Responsible (for regulation)	Responsible (for appointments)	No
26	Filling up vacancies of teachers	Functionary	Depending on jurisdiction and type of school	Responsible	Shared responsibility with the State

Source: Created by the authors.

The RTE imposes duties on the local government but does not empower them. Fiscal transfer primarily remains between the Center and state governments. As representatives of SMCs, local authorities can prepare school development plans, but cannot allocate funds for them. State governments have their own discretion to transfer funds, but do not give the same discretionary powers to LB. The rigidity in the neighborhood and infrastructural norms do not provide flexibility for local adaptations.

The silence of NEP-2020

The Nation Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) has very little to say about school governance at the local level. While the Draft NEP 2019 only touches upon the role of LB to make SCMCs (School Complex Monitoring Committees), the final NEP 2020, makes no mention of Panchayats or Urban LBs (MHRD-GOI, 2019; MHRD-GOI, 2020). NEP-2020 proposes that School Complexes hire “local eminent persons or experts as ‘master instructors’ in various subjects, such as in traditional local arts, vocational crafts, entrepreneurship etc.” However, it excludes regular curriculum instructors. NEP proposes scholarships for 4-year BEd. graduates, preferential employment for rural teachers, and incentives like local housing to teachers in rural areas, for teacher allotment and better retention in rural schools. It also aims to manage excessive teachers, assess teacher vacancies, and maintain transfer transparency through a “technology-based” online system. However, local governments have not been mentioned anywhere for carrying out these functions.

Discussion

Lant Pritchett (2009), describes India as a flailing state, where certain elite national and state institutions (“the head”) are able to deliver at scale (like elections, and providing unique ID cards), but are not reliably connected to it nerves and limbs (local governance), which are essential for delivering public goods and services like education, health, and sanitation. Different arms of the state and local government institutions are disempowered, and lack the capacity to raise revenues and hire people to function effectively. On the other hand, higher levels of government do not have the knowledge and capacity to address the local issues at scale and fail miserably. In the education bureaucracy, different levels of government have different knowledge and capacity. The autonomy and devolution need to be function-dependent. Adequate fiscal support with sufficient autonomy and capacity building are necessary for the effective performance of these duties. In addition, the intersections of social stratifications like caste, class, and gender, and elite dominance in politics and bureaucracy complicate the political devolution and governance further. Therefore, balancing the state control of education and decentralization has been a tricky issue.

In this paper, we trace the currents of centralization and decentralization of school management in post-colonial India. The larger tendency has been to centrally control the school education system post-independence. The currents of centralization stemmed from the late 1920s when it was alleged that local boards are inefficient in managing schools. Post-independence, committees and commissions were formed to look into the school governance and management up to the early 80s. They advocated for states to assume primary control over education. Most states in post-independent India expanded the schooling system and took control of the flow of funds and appointment of school functionaries (teachers, school staff, and the educational bureaucracy) from the district and municipal boards. In the 1990s, the constitutional devolution of power to LB, along with National Education Policy (NEP) initiatives proved to be grossly inadequate in ensuring the effective devolution of school management to local governments. The Right to Education Act of 2009 enhanced state and central government control over schools by setting stringent norms and standards on infrastructure, teachers and school recognition. NEP 2020, which calls for a systemic rehaul of the entire education system in India, surprisingly remained silent on structural issues of school governance. Thus, the last three decades 1992–2022 can be characterized as three lost decades in India's pursuit of genuine reforms in school decentralization.

A reflection on the strong state control of schools points to several factors. First, towards the end of the colonial period, educational administrators harbored a deep mistrust towards district boards and municipalities in effectively managing schools. Second, the framers of the Indian constitution feared the domination of uneducated local elites and upper-caste power politics. Third, teacher-union lobbying and the alleged harassment of teachers by local elites added to these concerns. Fourth, the Indian bureaucracy strongly resists local government control. The delegated organs of the state and parastatal agencies exercise great control over local affairs in India. Fifth, state governments have a strong incentive to control the education system, as government schools cover every habitation in India, with teachers acting as political messengers of the state. Lastly, by controlling the school curriculum, specifically subjects such as history and politics, political actors propagate their political ideologies into young minds.

Our focus has primarily been on elucidating the political and social factors that drive state control of education. We haven’t observed any discernible correlations between average state wise literacy rates, economic development indicators like per capita income, and the decentralization of education. Further work is needed to understand heterogeneity in education devolution in Indian states based on economic and educational factors. Furthermore, our article primarily aims to trace the historical shifts in education governance from the colonial period to present. The effectiveness of decentralization or its impact on student outcomes are beyond the scope of our work.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-mie-10.1177_08920206241278469 - Supplemental material for State control of school education in colonial and post-colonial India

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-mie-10.1177_08920206241278469 for State control of school education in colonial and post-colonial India by Shivakumar Jolad and Khushi Rajpuria in Management in Education

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We greatly acknowledge the critical review and suggestions from Prof. Vimala Ramachandran and Karan Singhal. SJ also acknowledges the insights derived from T.R. Raghunandan, Avani Kapur, and Rajika Seth, members of the Accountability Initiative. We also thank Prof. Yugank Goyal at FLAME University.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Shivakumar Jolad

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Author Biogrphies

Dr Shivakumar Jolad works as an Associate Professor of Public Policy at FLAME University, Pune, India. His primary research interests are in social policies focused on Education, Migration, and Human Development. He studies the structure of the schooling system, education policy, and governance in India. He has also worked on gaps between Language Diversity and Medium of Instruction in India. His other work includes: assessing the impact of COVID-19 on unorganized sector workers, food security and psychological distress of migrant workers, and tracing the migration and urbanization history of metropolitan cities in India. Jolad has a PhD in Physics and a doctoral minor in Demography from the Pennsylvania State University, PA, USA. Prior to joining FLAME University, he taught at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar India.

Ms Khushi Rajpuria is an incoming student of Master's in Financial Economics at the University of Manchester, United Kingdom. She completed her graduation from FLAME University in Pune, India, with a major in Economics. She simultaneously pursued courses in Applied Mathematics and Public Policy. During her undergraduate years, Khushi worked on several research projects revolving around the topics of economic development, education, women's empowerment, environmental and socio-cultural issues. She is also passionate about finance and is a CFA Level 1 Candidate.

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