For years, education governance has focused on providing inputs like infrastructure facilities, digital hardware and content, and ensuring the hired teachers have an appropriate degree, among others. Evidence suggests that none of these have a conclusive impact on student learning. While the playgrounds and classroom furniture were modernised, we forgot that students in grade II weren’t able to add 42 and 29 all this while. It seems someone interpreted fundamentalism in the right to education as all kids going to the schools but not necessarily learning, and no one ever questioned it.

Two key principles of good governance are transparency and accountability. Upholding these principles are India's prominent watchdogs for various sectors—the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for banking, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for security markets, and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) for food safety. Similarly, for ensuring quality in our schools, there is a proposed State School Standards Authority (SSSA) in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, that aims to bring structure, clarity, and fairness to an essential public domain: School education.

To realise SSSA’s role and functions, we need to look at the regulatory functions the other bodies undertake. The RBI's vigilance in financial oversight, SEBI's prowess in market surveillance, and FSSAI rigorous safety standards have something in common—these institutions effectively regulate because they all ensure transparency and accountability by following a four-step process: Set standards consensually, measure performance accurately, disclose information publicly, and educate masses intentionally. Let’s break these down for the school regulator one-by-one.

Setting standards consensually requires a collaborative effort among all stakeholders — government bodies, educators, parents, and communities. A ‘good’ school must meet some norms and standards on some very basic parameters like safety, infrastructure, teacher-student ratios, financial integrity, and governance, ensuring all schools—public, private, and philanthropic—comply. This approach aligns expectations and encourages shared responsibility for improving learning outcomes.

Measuring performance accurately is the second key link of the process. Standards alone are not enough; performance must be measured accurately to assess whether schools are meeting their core purpose—to make students learn or not. According to the NEP, school examinations in grades 3, 5, and 8 will test achievement of basic learning outcomes through assessment of core concepts, with relevant higher-order skills and application of knowledge in real-life situations, rather than rote memorisation. The data-driven approach allows us to identify areas for improvement and target interventions where they are most needed.

The third is disclosing information publicly. Transparency is essential in this process, as publicly disclosing school performance data gives parents, communities, and policymakers real-time insights into how schools are doing. Schools must be required to disclose comprehensive operational data—such as infrastructure, staffing, and student outcomes—on public platforms like the SSSA website.

The fourth link in the process is educating the masses intentionally. To make good education and learning a mass movement, public awareness is important to ensure that individuals can effectively interpret and act on this information. By adopting transparent processes and encouraging community participation, the SSSA seeks to build a culture of accountability and continuous improvement in education. Parents should be able to see how schools are performing and use that information to make informed decisions. Transparency shall lead to trust and accountability.

As someone deeply involved in supporting states with NEP implementation, I see the SSSA as more than a structural shift—it represents a promise to reshape education governance in India. This initiative marks a shift from compliance-driven inputs to results-driven outcomes. It's about empowering states to measure what matters most: student learning. The change isn't just conceptual; it's tangible, practical, and deeply necessary for our education system's evolution.

The road ahead for the implementation of the State School Standards Authority (SSSA) is not without its challenges. One of the key hurdles is the institutional design, as some states are repurposing existing bodies, such as SCERTs or Board of Assessments, to take on the role of the SSSA. This approach is outrightly against the principles set forth in the NEP of specialisation and avoidance of conflict of interest. SCERTs have a core job of designing curricula and academic materials for the state, and they operate under the Department of Education. This can come in the way of their specialised focus on regulation, creating a dual responsibility without the necessary separation of powers. The state Board of Assessments, though set up independently in most of the states, have to compete with the national and international boards like CBSE, CISCE, IGCSE, IB etc to attract schools for affiliation. Their job as regulator for all school conflicts with this design and creates an uneven field of play for the non-state boards. It is important to ensure that a school regulatory design is such that the body is given enough autonomy to function as an independent regulator, and bestowed with a single-minded focus to do that well.

Moving forward, collaboration between states, educators, and communities will be essential. With the right support, the SSSA has the potential to transform education governance from a system focused on inputs to one centred on outcomes. As we honour Vajpayee's vision for a transparent, just, and participatory governance system, the SSSA stands as a testament to that dream—an independent regulator committed to ensuring that every child, in every school, has access to quality education.

This article is authored by Kapil Khurana, associate director, Central Square Foundation, an NGO working on improving learning outcomes for children.