Making Sense of Crisis Responses: Policy Actors and Foundational Learning Reforms in India

• In Event: School Leaders as Policy Actors: The Role of Principals in Policy and Reform

Abstract

Amid growing concerns about a global learning crisis, many low- and middle-income countries have prioritized the achievement of universal foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) as their education systems’ urgent goal. However, little is known about how last-mile policy actors make sense of and implement FLN reforms that seek to address a learning crisis. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in India, this qualitative study finds that despite subscribing to the moral urgency of addressing a crisis that policy texts are premised on, policy actors often have differing problem diagnoses for the crisis. This contributes significantly towards their partial interpretation and superficial implementation of FLN policies, and thus, results in no fundamental shift in practice.

Author

• Abhinav Ghosh, Harvard University