School Education Saga-XII Is the Directorate of School Education a failed entity?

Hyderabad: Is the Department of School Education headed by a Directorate under the State Education Department an outdated and malfunctioning entity? Is it failing to improve the quality standards and anticipated outcomes of school education? Also, is it high time to do away with current and centralised school education regime in Telangana?

The Telangana State government's resistance to bringing structural reforms in school education comes against the backdrop of the National Education Policy-2020 (NEP-2020) that openly voices, “All main functions of governance and regulation of the school education system – namely, the provision of public education, the regulation of education institutions, and policymaking – are handled by a single body, i.e., the Department of School Education or its arms. This leads to a conflict of interests and excessive centralised concentration of power.”

Also, it points out that the current regime of the state-level department of school education also leads to ineffective management of the school system. Because, the efforts towards quality educational provision are often diluted by the focus on other roles, particularly regulation that the department performs. Besides, what resonates with the current situation in Telangana and how the private schools take parents for a ride and the successive state governments fail to prevent school fee loot, the national policy highlighted, that the current regulatory regime also has not been able to curb the commercialisation and economic exploitation of parents by many for-profit private schools. At the same time, “it has all too often inadvertently discouraged public-spirited private/philanthropic schools. There has been far too much asymmetry between the regulatory approaches to public and private schools, even though the goals of both types of schools should be the same: to provide quality education.”

Accordingly, the Department of School Education will continue to function as an apex state-level body in school education. It will be responsible for overall monitoring and policymaking for continual improvement of the public education system. However, it will not be involved with the provision and operation of schools or the regulation of schools. This structural reform in school education was recommended so that the DSE will have a due focus on the improvement of public schools and eliminate conflict of interest.

The educational operations and service provision for the public schooling system of the whole State will be handled by the Directorate of School Education and its line officers like the District Education Officer, Mandal or Block Education Officers. But, it insisted that the DSE should be an entity that should work independently to implement policies regarding educational operations and provision.