Inspectors Raj in Private Sector Schools| A Research by Centre for Civil Society

Private schools in India are governed by the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009, in addition to state regulations. Further, there are several government orders that govern the everyday functioning of these schools. In order to ensure that schools comply with norms, state Departments of Education have the power to conduct inspections. Despite such a central role played by inspections, there is little to no independent research on how these inspections are conducted.

We study how the government conducts inspections in Delhi. We find that it can take up to 919 days to complete an inspection process. Moreover, there is a large room to exercise discretion during this process. The Inspection proforma is populated with constructs that cannot be measured objectively. For instance, one question is: did the teacher ask “thought-provoking” and “well-distributed” questions? Not surprisingly, the interpretation of these terms and the recorded answers vary across inspectors and schools.

If we want to conduct inspections in a manner that ensures transparency and accountability, we need to rethink how the Directorate of Education conducts school inspections.

To learn more, find our research here:

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