EDUCATION AND THE STATE - POLICY IMPLEMENTATION IN INDIA FEDERAL POLITY

Implementation of social policy in India is a complex process since any policy message travels through a minimum of three different tiers of government: central, State level and local government (Panchayati Raj) at the District level. Educational policy is implemented through bureaucratic administrative structures which typically employ a top-down approach. The arena of educational policy implementation is also fraught with the tensions of an uneasy and unresolved centre: State relationship, in which education becomes subject to issues of power and control in conflicts over the nature of the state and understandings of federal responsibilities. Using material from a recent case study of policy implementation in India, Operation Blackboard, this paper discusses aspects of the character of the bureaucracy and nature of the federal polity which were found to impinge upon, disturb and even overrule the realisation of explicit educational policy aims.