School system and education policy in India : charting the contours

India has had a long history of a larger institutionalized school system of more than 150 years, starting from the colonial times to the present. This system has not only been influenced by its colonial history but also been shaped by different sets of political, economic, and social changes ever since Independence. This chapter aims to provide an overview of the above trajectory with a more detailed focus on the changes that have taken place in the school system over the last three decades. These decades have seen unprecedented expansion of the school system; emergence of newer complexities in the reshaping of relations between the state, market, and non-state actors in education and also a sharpening of tensions between values of social justice and equity; and a rights-based mandate of education as a public good on the one hand and market-based reforms on the other. The chapter outlines the nature of these changes and the continuing challenges faced by the school education system within a framework of the constitutional provisions and the policy mandates that have been the guiding blocks for educational reform agendas