School Education Governance in India: Central, State, and Local Roles

Who controls how your child is taught, what they learn, and which authority is responsible when a government school lacks basic infrastructure? In India, the answer is not straightforward – it involves the Constitution, the Parliament, state legislatures, and even the elected head of your village’s gram panchayat. School education in India is governed through a multilevel framework where the central government, state governments, and local bodies each play defined – and sometimes overlapping – roles. Understanding how this structure came to be, and how it functions today, is essential for anyone working in or thinking about education in India.

The constitutional foundation of school education governance 🔗

The Indian Constitution is the bedrock on which the entire edifice of education governance rests. It lays out – through the Seventh Schedule under Article 246 – a three-list division of legislative powers: the Union List (matters exclusive to Parliament), the State List (matters exclusive to state legislatures), and the Concurrent List (matters where both can legislate). Education has not always occupied the same place on this map. Its movement from one list to another tells the story of how India’s approach to school governance has evolved over decades.

Beyond the three lists, several constitutional provisions directly shape education. Article 21A, inserted by the 86th Amendment in 2002, made free and compulsory education a fundamental right for all children aged 6 to 14. Article 45 of the Directive Principles of State Policy had originally directed the state to work toward this goal as an aspiration; it took over five decades and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 to make it a legally enforceable right. Article 40, also a Directive Principle, directed states to organise village panchayats and empower them to function as units of self-government – a provision that would later become the constitutional basis for grassroots education management.

Pre-1976: education as a state subject 🔗

In the original Constitution of 1950, education was placed firmly in the State List. This meant that individual state governments had complete authority over school education – from designing syllabi and running teacher training programs to managing school infrastructure and framing education policy. Before 1976, the central government’s role was essentially advisory. It could offer recommendations and coordinate certain aspects of higher education, but it had no legislative power to direct how states should run their schools.

This arrangement reflected the federal character of India’s polity. The idea was that education, being intimately tied to local languages, cultures, and socioeconomic conditions, was best left to the states. For instance, a state like Tamil Nadu would shape its school curriculum very differently from Punjab or West Bengal, and rightly so. The central government’s involvement was largely confined to institutions of national importance – such as central universities, IITs, and bodies like the University Grants Commission – all of which fell under the Union List.

The 42nd constitutional amendment, 1976: a turning point 🔗

The landscape shifted fundamentally with the 42nd Amendment to the Constitution in 1976, which moved education from the State List to the Concurrent List. This was a far-reaching change. It meant that both Parliament and state legislatures could now legislate on education – and in the event of a conflict between a central law and a state law on the same educational matter, the central law would prevail.

The 42nd Amendment received presidential assent on December 18, 1976. The immediate implication was that school education policy and programmes could now be set at the national level, even as state governments retained extensive autonomy in implementing them. This created a new dynamic: states were no longer the sole architects of their education systems. The central government could now recommend national frameworks, set quality benchmarks, and fund programmes that would apply across the country.

Why this shift mattered 🔗

The rationale behind the move was to bring greater consistency and national integration to India’s education system. With 28 states (at the time) and several union territories, there were vast disparities in educational quality, access, and infrastructure. Placing education in the Concurrent List was seen as a way to promote higher standards throughout India and improve synergy between the Centre and states. The central government could now take a larger responsibility for ensuring that education served national goals – such as scientific development, national integration, and social equity – while states continued to handle ground-level implementation.

However, critics have pointed out that no detailed rationale was provided at the time of this shift, and it has since generated debate about whether the diversity of India’s states is better served by more or less centralisation. Out of the total revenue expenditure on education in India estimated at ₹6.25 lakh crore in 2020-21, only 15% was spent by the Centre while 85% was spent by the states – indicating that despite national policy influence, states remain the primary financiers and executors of school education.

The National Policy on Education, 1986: operationalising the concurrent framework 🔗

The constitutional shift of 1976 created the legal space for a national education policy. That vision was realised a decade later with the National Policy on Education (NPE) of 1986, introduced under Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. This landmark policy sought to develop a common educational framework and ensure that every student, regardless of caste, creed, location, or gender, had access to education of comparable quality.

The NPE 1986 described the relationship between the central and state governments in education as a “meaningful partnership.” It explicitly acknowledged that the 1976 constitutional amendment required a new sharing of responsibility – one where the Union government would reinforce the national character of education, maintain quality standards, and monitor the country’s overall educational requirements, while states would remain the primary implementers of programmes on the ground.

Key contributions of NPE 1986 🔗

Among its most significant contributions was the introduction of the 10+2+3 education structure, which standardised the schooling pattern across the country. The policy also launched Operation Blackboard, a centrally funded initiative to provide primary schools with minimum essential facilities – at least two classrooms, basic teaching materials, and the requirement that at least half of newly recruited primary teachers be women. Operation Blackboard became a model for subsequent educational programmes, influencing later initiatives like the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and ultimately the Right to Education Act of 2009.

The policy also pushed for the establishment of Navodaya Vidyalayas – residential schools for talented rural students – with 75% seats reserved for rural children, including reservations for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The National Policy was revised in 1992 under Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao through the Programme of Action (PoA), which brought additional emphasis on decentralisation, community participation, and linking literacy missions with poverty alleviation.

Local self-governance and school education 🔗

The governance of school education in India does not stop at the central and state levels. A critical third tier exists at the local level, and its constitutional legitimisation came through the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments of 1992. These amendments gave constitutional status to Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) in rural areas and Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in cities and towns, fundamentally reshaping who is responsible for education at the grassroots level.

The 73rd and 74th amendments: empowering local bodies 🔗

The 73rd Amendment came into force on April 24, 1993, and established a three-tier Panchayati Raj system: the Gram Panchayat at the village level, the Panchayat Samiti at the intermediate (block) level, and the Zilla Parishad at the district level. The amendment added a new Eleventh Schedule to the Constitution covering 29 subjects within the functions of panchayats – and elementary education was explicitly among them. The 74th Amendment mirrored this for urban areas, empowering municipal bodies to play a similar role in managing school education in cities and towns.

The National Policy on Education and its Programme of Action (1992) emphasised the importance of decentralisation of planning and management of education at all levels to ensure greater community participation. Accordingly, a CABE (Central Advisory Board of Education) Committee was set up to formulate guidelines for the management of education at district, sub-district, and village levels in the context of the two amendments.

What panchayats and urban bodies do in school education 🔗

Under the decentralised framework, PRIs are responsible for a range of education-related functions. At the village level, Gram Panchayats are expected to manage primary and middle schools, create awareness about enrolment, and support the functioning of Village Education Committees (VECs) – bodies made up of parents and community members who monitor school functioning. The Programme of Action approved by CABE attached considerable importance to these VECs as mechanisms for community ownership of local schools.

At higher tiers, Panchayat Samitis and Zilla Parishads take on functions related to school infrastructure, teacher management, and monitoring of educational programmes at the block and district levels. In Madhya Pradesh, for example, the management of school education from Classes I to XII was formally transferred to the three-tier Panchayati Raj Institutions through a government order in 1996, making it one of the more comprehensive examples of educational decentralisation in India.

In urban areas, municipal bodies and municipal corporations take on analogous roles. They manage municipal schools – which in many large cities constitute a significant share of schools serving low-income families – and are responsible for infrastructure maintenance, teacher appointments, and basic quality monitoring.

Persistent challenges in local governance of education 🔗

Despite the constitutional mandate, the actual transfer of powers, finances, and staff to local bodies has been uneven across India. PRIs face challenges including incomplete transfer of functions, funds, and staff; delayed implementation of finance commission recommendations; and bureaucratic control. In many states, panchayats play a peripheral role in education – supporting enrolment drives and school maintenance – rather than exercising genuine management authority. Capacity gaps, limited financial resources, and the social dynamics of caste and gender further complicate the picture.

The Right to Education Act of 2009, which operationalised Article 21A, sought to address some of these gaps by mandating School Management Committees (SMCs) in every government school. These committees – with majority representation from parents, especially mothers – are meant to function as local accountability mechanisms, bridging the gap between community needs and school functioning. They represent the most direct form of local participation in school governance that currently exists across the country.

The three levels working together – and their tensions 🔗

India’s school education governance today operates as a layered system. Education is jointly managed at the Centre, state, district, block, and village levels. The Ministry of Education (formerly the Ministry of Human Resource Development) sets national frameworks, funds major schemes like Samagra Shiksha, and maintains institutions like NCERT, CBSE, Kendriya Vidyalayas, and Navodaya Vidyalayas. State education departments manage the bulk of government schools, recruit and train teachers, and adapt national frameworks to local contexts. Local bodies, in theory, are the closest point of accountability to parents and communities.

The challenge is ensuring that this three-tier system functions coherently. The vast differences between states’ policies, plans, programmes, and initiatives relating to school education – in a country with 28 states and 8 union territories – mean that national policy goals are achieved very unevenly. A child in Kerala and a child in Bihar may both be enrolled in a government school under the same national right to education, but their actual learning experiences can differ dramatically based on how well each state and local body has implemented policy on the ground.

What do you think? Given that 85% of education expenditure in India comes from state governments rather than the Centre, do state governments have enough policy autonomy to match their financial responsibility? And with local bodies like gram panchayats formally empowered to manage primary schools, what would it take to make that participation genuinely effective rather than merely administrative?

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_India
2. https://ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in/edup13/chapter/constitutionalprovision-governing-educational-administration-in-india-sharing-of-powers/
3. https://www.education.gov.in/en/national-policy-education-1986-modified-1992
4. https://ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in/edup13/chapter/constitutional-provisions-andpolicy/
5. https://www.shankariasparliament.com/current-affairs/education-governance
6. https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/upload_document/npe.pdf
7. https://polsci.institute/public-policy-administration-india/key-features-impact-national-policy-education-1986/
8. https://www.britannica.com/topic/panchayati-raj
9. https://secforuts.mha.gov.in/73rd-amendment-of-panchayati-raj-in-india/
10. https://ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in/edup13/chapter/role-of-panchayati-raj-institutions-in-management-of-educational-institutions/
11. https://www.niepa.ac.in/download/Publications/Occasional_Paper-_48_R_S_Tyagi.pdf
12. https://ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in/edup13/chapter/multilevel-educational-administration-management-and-governance/