Lab at Oxford University, Bengaluru NGO ShikshaLokam release playbook on how governments and civil society can work together

The Government Outcomes Lab at the University of Oxford and ShikshaLokam, a non-profit organisation, have released a playbook on how governments and civil society can work together to drive systemic change in public education.The playbook draws on a study of Shikshagraha, an education movement led by ShikshaLokam, an education leadership catalyst backed by Infosys co-founder S.D. Shibulal. Titled Orchestrating Education System Change: Insights from the Shikshagraha Movement, the playbook examines the role that government-civil society partnerships can play in education reform, the conditions that enable productive collaboration, the challenges that can undermine such partnerships, and how these challenges can be addressed.Stefan Dercon, Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford and former chief economist at the U.K.’s Department for International Development, said, “For much of the last three decades, the dominant approach to improving education in developing countries has focused on what governments should do differently: better curricula, stronger accountability frameworks, clearer targets. These matter. But they have consistently underestimated something more fundamental: how to implement change.”The study shifts the focus from identifying solutions to examining how governments, civil society, and communities can work together to implement and sustain reform at scale.Currently, more than 35 civil society, industry and philanthropic partners in the Shikshagraha network are collectively working with over 1.17 lakh schools across 33 districts in 14 States and Union Territories. The work includes enabling education leaders to undertake need-based school improvement, and increasing the participation of women, youth and communities in the public education system.The playbook highlights that while governments bring the mandate and ability to implement policy at scale, civil society organisations bring local knowledge, experimentation, and the capacity to respond to diverse contexts. It also cautions that poorly designed partnerships can hinder reform.The playbook draws on interviews with 30 stakeholders from Shikshagraha and the wider Indian education system, including serving and former government officials at the Central, State and district levels, civil society organisations, and philanthropic donors. The researchers conducted fieldwork in New Delhi, Gaya, Patna, Bengaluru and Mysuru.The playbook identifies three priorities for stronger government-civil society partnerships: clear roles, working with existing public systems, and building trust.“India does not have an education-solutions problem; it has a system-change problem,” said Khushboo Awasthi, Chief Curator, Shikshagraha, and co-founder of ShikshaLokam. Across the country, teachers, communities, school leaders, and civil society organisations are already developing solutions that work. “But no single solution, however effective, can transform a public system on its own,” she added. Published - September 16, 2026 01:00 pm IST