In the podcast below, Yamini Aiyar, Director of Accountability Initiative (AI), talks about understanding bureaucracy from the bureaucrats’ perspective drawing from AI’s research on frontline bureaucracy in the education sector.

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To learn more about understanding bureaucracy at the frontline, we present our key research papers.

The Post Office Paradox (2016)

Yamini Aiyar, Sharanya Bhattacharya

Elementary education administrators at the block level primarily perceive themselves, or report themselves to be, disempowered cogs in a hierarchical administrative culture that renders them powerless. Using the case of education delivery, this paper attempts to probe an administrator’s perspective in resolving the implementation problem at the last mile.

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Education Reform and the Puzzles of Implementation (2015)

Yamini Aiyar, Ambrish Dongre, Vincy Davis

This paper unpacks the organisational culture and norms that make up the Indian state and how this impacts the crisis of implementation capability. Through detailed qualitative interviews of Bihar’s education administrators, this research analyses the Government of Bihar’s attempt to improve quality learning as part of a larger reform effort called the ‘Mission Gunvatta’.

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Bringing the Education Administration Back Into the Classroom (2016)

Yamini Aiyar

In this blog, Yamini Aiyar, Director of Accountability Initiative, pulls from our earlier research to present key discussions on the need for education administrators to break away from the bureaucratic eco-system and focus on learning outcomes and quality service delivery.

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Debating the Role of India’s Frontline Education Bureaucracy (2016)

Yamini Aiyar

Taking from the previous blog, this piece goes one step further to suggest practical and scalable suggestions to reform bureaucratic systems to directly impact learning outcomes and quality in education. These insights come partly from a discussion with key stakeholders (CBOs, education administrators) on the way forward for education bureaucrats.

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Reforms in Education Bureaucracy (2016)

Vincy Davis

Vincy Davis talks us through the obstacles embedded in the bureaucratic environment of frontline education administrators that restrict the output of quality education. Her blog concludes with suggestion to adopt new approaches to circumvent these obstacles to ensure better learning in government schools.

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To read about our work on Understanding Bureaucracy click here.