In every country in the world there is an “access axis” that dominates education policy. There is a powerful coalition focusing on “business-as-usual” expansion of existing systems. The temptations are near irresistible: politicians get to hire more teachers, contractors get to build more buildings, teachers’ unions get more members, and government officials get more projects to manage. Beautifully, all of this can be wrapped in high-minded rhetoric about human rights for the Left and promoting the economy for the Right. The “access axis” has the additional advantage that those who bear the brunt of its policies are children, mostly of the rural, the poor and the powerless, who are trapped in brutal and ineffective schools without effective alternatives and robbed of their life chances through poor quality education.

India, with its newly elected government, stands at a crossroads on its policies for post-primary education. The expansion in enrolments at the primary level is producing ever greater numbers of primary school leavers, most of whom seek to continue their education. Something should be done about secondary education. India has two choices. India can choose to follow and slavishly copy other “best practices” and serve the interests of the “access axis” by a business-as-usual expansion of the existing public system. Alternatively, India has the capacity to choose its own distinctive path, leapfrog what other countries have done, and become a global leader in building new modalities of support for expansion in secondary education that create an environment for secondary education that encourages real learning, innovation, and accountability.

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