The paper locates educational policy in a wider socio-historical and political perspective and aims at an ideological deconstruction of policy change with a specific focus on the equality–quality conundrum in elementary education in India. It attempts to critically decode changes in notions and practices of equality and quality in national and international policy prescription, highlighting aspects of ideological contexts, power asymmetries and state dynamics and examines basic shifts in policy discourse and intent. The paper is organised in four parts. The first two parts take a broad historical overview to examine notions of equality and quality, articulated in texts and discussions pertaining to the two national educational policies and in policy initiatives introduced by the Indian state under neoliberal, global hegemonic influence. The interactive impact of educational restructuring and structures of stratification as reflected in the aggravation of key caste, class, gender and ethnic inequalities is captured in the third part of the paper. The final part of the paper draws attention to dilutions and contradictions inherent in recent policy shifts to argue that any meaningful notion of quality education for the poor is impossible to attain in the present context. It unravels the politics of quality.
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