Researching Accountability in the Indian System of Education (RAISE), 2021

RAISE focused on socio-economically disadvantaged children of primary school age in India, and conceptualised accountability as systemic and relational. It showed that multiple actors across home, community, school and bureaucratic ‘scales’ have divergent norms, interests and modes of participation that differentially shape children’s learning outcomes. RAISE adopted a mixed methods approach focused on themes of access, participation, and monitoring. Empirical work took place in Patna District (Bihar) and Udaipur District (Rajasthan). The qualitative phase came first: per District, the sample comprised 12 schools of government, low-fee private primary schools and non-formal types, grouped into a rural and an urban cluster, each of six schools (total n = 24; all Hindi-medium). We explored stakeholder perspectives using individual and group interviews, observations and focus group discussions which were thematically analysed using NVivo. Quantitative data were collected using a survey of representative stakeholders in a sample of representative schools (25 rural and 25 urban schools per District [n = 50 per State, total n = 100], although in Bihar it covered only 36 schools as a teachers’ strike then Covid curtailed access). Key findings included: accountability relations are everywhere bureaucratised in ways that preclude focus on children’s learning; underpinning assumptions about stakeholder responsibilities embedded in the 2009 Right to Education Act result in a misrepresentative social contract that reinforces power differentials; and state support schemes of support are weak in targeting the inequalities that impact on children’s learning.

Evidence of a ‘learning crisis’ in primary schools in the Global South has prompted significant concern over accountability in education systems. The RAISE project investigates education system accountability in India, focusing on children of primary school age who are disadvantaged by a range of cross-cutting structural inequalities that include gender, location, caste, and class. It advances understanding of accountability for improved learning outcomes for such children by conceptualising accountability as systemic and relational. In so doing, it departs from the established approach of isolating specific variables for reform. RAISE aims instead to show how multiple actors across the home, community, school and bureaucratic ‘scales’ have particular norms and interests, modes of participation and regulatory roles that shape learning outcomes for disadvantaged children - in both positive and negative ways. It does this by examining both the formal rule-based relations of these system actors, and the informal, everyday practices of accountability, which all bear significantly on progress towards India’s intention, under the 2009 Right to Education Act (RTE), to ensure free, compulsory, good quality education for all children. RAISE selects three themes for in-depth focus of accountability relations in Indian elementary education: access, participation, and monitoring. It examines how these are taken up in different ways, and with respect to differing understandings of education quality and equity held by actors across the four scales. To do this, it adopts a mixed-methods approach, beginning with a qualitative phase (comprising semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and focus group discussions), followed by a quantitative survey to validate and extend the qualitative analysis. Empirical work takes place in two States, Bihar and Patna, focusing on two districts and within each, two blocks. In each block, a purposive sample of ten schools is selected to include government, private, and non-formal provision, to enable examination of accountability relations that surround differently positioned learners.

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