Local Level Administrative Reforms and Management of School Education in India

Authors: Dr. Rajvir Singh Tyagi

Pages: 99-109

Abstract:

The major concerned of education policy reforms has always been to make the delivery of educational programmes more effective. Since schools are the ultimate delivery points in the overall educational management, administration of school education in India has undergone unprecedented changes. The direction of policy reforms in management of elementary education indicated enormous efforts towards the changes that have taken place from centralized command and control of education to decentralized participatory management of the people. Since decentralization of administration encourages people to participate in planning and decision-making process, the present paper argued that enormous efforts have been made in the past to empower people and to decentralize educational administration at district, block and village levels. Keeping in view the emerging issues and challenges of block level educational administration, the study attempts to capture the problems confronted by block level educational administration. It also attempts to identify the gaps between the block level structure of educational administration and the required assignment of functional responsibilities. It examines the question as to how far the present structure of educational administration is appropriate to meet the new challenges of policy reforms and discharge the expected responsibilities. It also investigates as to whether the existing structure of educational administration, at the block level, is able to respond to the issue of effective implementation of RTE and programmes like SSA and MDM, or it needs reform and restructuring. While examining the present structure and functions of block level educational administration, it recommended for creation of a Block Education Officer Cadre in Gujarat.