Devika Dutta
(debika.dutta2015@gmail.com)
A school may stand behind a gate, but education can never exist behind closed doors. A government school belongs to the public in a very real sense. It is sustained by public resources, entrusted with children and guided by policies intended to shape the human capital of the state. Parents, therefore, have a legitimate interest in what happens inside it, citizens have a legitimate expectation of accountability, and the government has an undeniable responsibility to ensure that its schools function properly. Yet openness does not mean the absence of boundaries. A school is also a protected academic space where children must be able to learn without unnecessary interruption and teachers must be able to discharge their responsibilities with professional dignity. The recent directions of the Assam Education Department concerning school security, hygiene, academic discipline, student privacy and regulated access to campuses therefore deserve to be understood within this larger principle: a school must remain accountable to society without ceasing to be a school.
The distinction is important. The government has not sought to place public education beyond public scrutiny. Education Minister Ranoj Pegu has clarified that guardians, citizens and civil-society members may visit government and provincialised schools, provided such visits do not disrupt regular classes or affect the academic environment. The accompanying directions concerning unauthorised entry and the protection of students from unauthorised photography and videography are consequently better understood as measures intended to preserve order, safety and the dignity of the educational environment. The objective should not be to erect barriers between schools and communities, but to establish a responsible framework within which engagement can take place without compromising the interests of children.
Accountability is, after all, inseparable from public education. A government that spends public money on schools must know whether that expenditure is producing educational value. Parents want to know whether their children are learning. Administrators must know where systems are failing. Teachers must remain accountable for their professional duties. School heads must ensure discipline, safety and academic functioning. None of this is controversial. The real challenge is to create an accountability mechanism that is sufficiently rigorous to identify shortcomings and sufficiently intelligent to understand why those shortcomings exist.
That requires us to look beyond the traditional idea of inspection. A school cannot be judged simply by what a visitor sees during an hour-long visit. Registers may be complete, buildings may be clean and classrooms may appear orderly, yet students may continue to struggle with reading, comprehension, numeracy or communication. Conversely, a school working with modest resources may have teachers who are achieving remarkable results through commitment and innovation. Educational quality is therefore not always visible at first glance. It has to be measured through evidence: student learning, attendance, classroom practices, infrastructure, safety, teacher support, participation and the overall development of children.
This becomes particularly important as Assam implements the broader vision of the National Education Policy 2020. Foundational literacy and numeracy, competency-based education, experiential learning, vocational exposure, technology-enabled education and holistic development cannot be assessed adequately through a checklist alone. If the objectives of education are changing, the methods of evaluating schools must change as well. Inspection must gradually move from merely checking compliance to understanding learning. The central question should not only be whether a school has followed a prescribed procedure, but whether that procedure is helping a child become a more capable, confident and curious learner.
Such an approach would also make accountability fairer to teachers. Teachers must be responsible for their professional conduct and performance; there can be no meaningful educational system without that responsibility. But the quality of a school cannot be placed entirely on the shoulders of individual teachers. Student learning is influenced by attendance, family circumstances, infrastructure, availability of learning resources, teacher deployment, school leadership and the wider social environment. A serious system of inspection must therefore distinguish between an individual failure and a systemic deficiency. Identifying the correct cause of a problem is not an excuse for avoiding accountability. It is what makes accountability effective.
The question of outside participation requires the same balance. Schools cannot be isolated from the communities they serve. Parents should be able to raise concerns. Citizens should be able to draw attention to genuine deficiencies. Civil society can contribute ideas, expertise and resources. School-management bodies have an important role in strengthening the relationship between institutions and communities. Public participation can be an asset to education when it is constructive and properly channelled.
But a school is not an ordinary public space. Children are present. Their safety and privacy have to be protected. A classroom cannot become a place where lessons are interrupted at will. Photographs and videos involving children require particular sensitivity. Teachers should not have to suspend academic work because of uncoordinated visits. School heads need to know who is entering their campuses and for what legitimate purpose. Reasonable procedures are therefore not restrictions on public participation; they are safeguards that make responsible participation possible.
The present moment offers Assam an opportunity to build a stronger model of school accountability. Instead of treating inspection as an occasional event, the state can develop a transparent school-quality framework with clearly defined indicators. Foundational learning, attendance, academic progress, sanitation, drinking water, safety, libraries, laboratories, digital resources, inclusion, co-curricular activities and implementation of government programmes can all form part of such a framework. More importantly, inspection should lead to action. A deficiency identified today should have a responsible authority, a corrective measure and a reasonable timeline for review.
There should also be room in this system for recognition. Assam has schools that succeed under very different circumstances. Some have developed innovative teaching practices; some have improved student attendance; some have built strong sporting or cultural programmes; some have created supportive environments for children who require additional assistance. These examples should not remain isolated. A good inspection system should discover what works and enable other schools to learn from it. Accountability becomes more constructive when it identifies strengths as carefully as it identifies weaknesses.
The dignity of teachers must remain part of this equation. Educational reform cannot succeed by treating teachers merely as objects of inspection. They are the people who translate government policy into daily classroom experience. They need accountability, but they also need training, resources, leadership and professional trust. A teacher who knows that inspection is designed to improve the institution is more likely to participate in the process constructively. The relationship between administrators and teachers should therefore be one of responsibility accompanied by support, not suspicion accompanied by fear.
The government has a crucial role in maintaining this balance. It must set standards, monitor implementation and intervene where necessary. But monitoring becomes meaningful only when it is followed by support and corrective action. If a school lacks infrastructure, the deficiency needs a solution. If teachers require capacity-building, training must follow. If students have learning gaps, targeted academic intervention must be provided. If safety concerns arise, appropriate safeguards must be strengthened. Governance is not complete when a problem is recorded; it becomes effective when the problem is addressed.
Assam’s educational transformation deserves such a mature culture of accountability. The State is investing in school infrastructure, learning outcomes, technology and the wider implementation of NEP 2020. The discussion around access to schools and school visits should therefore not remain a narrow dispute. It should become an opportunity to ask how Assam can create an educational system in which government oversight, teacher professionalism, parental participation and student welfare reinforce one another.
The ultimate test remains simple. Does a child learn better? Does a child feel safe? Does a teacher have the conditions necessary to teach? Does a parent have confidence in the institution? Does public expenditure translate into educational opportunity? If the answer to these questions improves, the system is moving in the right direction.
A school must therefore be open to legitimate scrutiny, but protected from disorder. It must remain connected to society, but governed by clear institutional procedures. Teachers must be accountable, but respected as professionals. Parents and citizens must have a voice, but that voice must operate in ways that protect the learning environment. And the government must continue to exercise its rightful authority as the custodian of public education. The school gate, in the end, should not be a wall between education and society. It should be a threshold between public responsibility and institutional discipline. Beyond it lies a classroom where the future of Assam is being quietly prepared every day. Protecting that classroom, improving it and holding it accountable are not competing objectives. They are different expressions of the same public duty: to ensure that every child receives an education worthy of his or her future.