Institutionalizing equity and peace through centers of excellence in education: A case study from Haryana, India

• In Event: Advancing Equity in Education: Access, Implementation, and Institutional Capacity Across Contexts

Proposal

In Haryana, the Department of Education and Empathy Bridge Foundation are working together to create Centers of Excellence (CoEs) that can carry inclusive education beyond pilot projects and into the structure of the school system. The idea is straightforward but demanding: move past one-time trainings and establish units that make inclusion routine, accountable, and visible. The work is ongoing, and this paper examines how the model is taking shape, why it matters, and the issues it encounters during implementation.

Establishing CoEs advances both policy development and operational excellence in education reform. Rather than functioning only as training hubs, CoEs are designed to align capacity building with consistent implementation and evidence-based decision-making. Their impact can be seen across three functions. First, they enable the development and dissemination of best practices, ensuring that innovations are captured, institutionalized, and fed back into policy design. Second, they work to ensure consistency in service delivery, minimizing the role of chance in whether a child receives support by standardizing methods and tools across districts. Third, they provide ongoing practitioner support, including mentoring, problem-solving, and guidance, while monitoring how trained personnel and resources are deployed in practice. By combining frontline support with continuous monitoring and analytics, Haryana’s CoEs are making capacity not only built but also optimally utilized, with interventions informing both daily practice and long-term policy choices.

Empathy Bridge has a specific place in this process. The NGO designs and delivers training both in person and through digital modules, ensuring that teachers and special educators know how to use new tools. These include tracking forms and dashboards collaboratively designed with the DOE. The dashboards give district officials and schools a running view of progress and gaps, enabling them to respond quickly and share lessons across the state. The blended training model, combining face-to-face mentoring with digital resources, is making it possible for the CoE approach to extend across Haryana while still adjusting to local differences.

Evidence for this paper comes from state reports, field observations during the rollout, surveys, and conversations with educators and district officials. The experience so far shows both achievements and constraints. CoEs are helping reduce reliance on individual champions by embedding routines in institutional structures. Teachers value the continued mentoring as much as the initial training. Officials are beginning to use the dashboards for planning and resource allocation. At the same time, working across a state as diverse as Haryana raises practical challenges. Training has to account for multiple languages, wide variation in local school contexts, and the difficulty of reaching every educator on a consistent schedule. These are issues of scale and diversity rather than shortcomings of the model itself, and they show the complexity of embedding reform in a large system.

Why does this case matter to the CIES theme of education and peace in a divided world? Haryana reflects divisions that mirror those in many education systems: urban and rural disparities, inequities in disability recognition and support, and classrooms that bring together first-generation learners with more advantaged peers. When services differ sharply across districts or schools, divisions widen and inequities deepen. By creating common tools, shared standards, and consistent mechanisms for support, the CoEs attempt to reduce those gaps. In this sense, inclusion is not only about pedagogy but also about fairness and participation. Ensuring that all children, regardless of background or location, can access the support they need strengthens trust in institutions and builds the ground for more cohesive communities.

The collaboration between state and NGO also raises questions that are relevant beyond Haryana. How much can civil society drive systemic reform when the authority rests with government? What are the opportunities and risks when an NGO designs digital tools that become part of the state’s operational architecture? To what extent can a model built in one Indian state be adapted to larger or more resource-constrained contexts? These questions remain open, and this paper contributes them for wider reflection and debate.

For the field, the Haryana case underscores two lessons. First, capacity building cannot be separated from structures that hold it in place. Training that is detached from accountability and follow-up is unlikely to last. By linking mentoring with monitoring systems, the CoE model creates a path for endurance. Second, institutional intermediaries matter. CoEs sit between the state and the classroom, interpreting directives and policies for local settings while communicating back the challenges and innovations from the field. This two-way role is difficult but essential if reforms are to be both consistent and responsive.

The work remains in progress. Questions of sustainability, adaptation, and resources will continue to shape outcomes. Yet what is clear is that inclusive education can be understood as a peace-building strategy, not only as a service to children with special needs. When children in different districts have equal access to support, education becomes a space of participation rather than exclusion. This helps build trust in institutions and creates the conditions for social cohesion.

Authors

• Bhavana Akula, Empathy Bridge

• Parmod Kumar, Department of School Education Govt.of Haryana