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.