ABSTRACT
For educational policy and practice in India, the period since the early 1990s has been one of deep deliberations, immense ferment, leading to contested and diverse action by national and international actors. Since the formulation of the National Policy on Education 1986 (also referred to as the New Education Policy), and a follow-up plan of action, the core focus of federal policy has been directed towards an understanding of educational backwardness, and a vision of educational development as a distinct category – different from notions of economic growth or poverty. Two important consequences of this change have been:
the development of new norms for programmatic resource transfers to states for education, in addition to statutory transfers prescribed by the Finance Commission or the Planning Commission, and
convergent state and donor action for incubating new ideas for reform.
