A POLITICAL ECONOMY OF EDUCATION IN INDIA: THE CASE OF U.P. by Geeta Gandhi Kingdon Mohd. Muzammil August 2000 Abstract The paper explores the political economy factors that influenced the evolution of educational institutions and shaped the legislation that now governs the education sector in UP. The study focuses on the extent of and reasons for teachers’ participation in politics, the evolution and activities of their unions, the size of their representation in the state legislature, and the link between these and other factors such as the enactment of particular education Acts in UP, teacher salaries and appointments, and the extent of centralisation in the management of schools. It attempts to draw out the implications for the functioning of schools. Keywords: education, political economy, teacher unions, elections, centralisation Institutional affiliation of authors: Dr. Geeta Kingdon: Research Officer, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3UQ, United Kingdom. Tel: 00 44 1865 271065, email:
[email protected] Dr. Mohd. Muzammil: Reader, Economics Department, Lucknow University, Lucknow 226 007, UP, India. Tel: 0522 419837. Acknowledgements: We would like to thank, without implicating in the final product, Jean Drèze for commenting on parts of the work reported in this paper. The research was partially funded by the India office of the UK government’s Department for International Development and partially by a Wellcome Trust grant number 053660. 1 A POLITICAL ECONOMY OF EDUCATION IN INDIA: THE CASE OF U.P. by Geeta Gandhi Kingdon Mohd. Muzammil August 2000 1. Introduction There is now an impressive array of evidence linking education with both economic growth and social progress.