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.