A few good actions may actually be enough to improve education
Indian school education has serious challenges, but the picture is not uniformly bad. In every part of India, you can find good teachers and schools. Also, states have systematic differences driven by specific actions they have taken, not just due to their overall governance culture.
Many of these actions do not need to worry about constraints. First, they do not require large incremental financial commitments; in a few cases, 1-2% of the existing education budget of the state or even less would suffice. Second, they do not require sustained battle with widely distributed and politically influential groups resisting change.
Third, partly as a function of the first two, these actions do not demand substantial political capital and will from the state-level leadership. Here are some important actions. First, states need to have robust institutions for academic work in the school education system.
This includes curriculum and syllabus development, textbook development, examination and assessment improvements, professional development of teachers and school leaders. These institutions include the State Council for Education Research and Training (SCERT) at the state level, the District Institute of Education and Training (DIETs) at the district level, and then block-level and cluster-level resource centres (BRCs and CRCs). While all states have SCERTs and DIETs, all states do not have BRCs and CRCs.
Given the size of most of India’s districts, a single institution like DIET does not have the reach to support all the schools and teachers spread across the area. Which is why BRCs and CRCs matter. Some states have adopted other mechanisms for cluster-level support, for example by grouping together all schools in a Panchayat,
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