Decentralisation to improve teacher quality? District Institutes of Education and Training in India

Decentralisation is often expected to improve democratic participation and empowerment, and improve government responsiveness to local needs. International experience demonstrates that striking the right balance between centralisation and decentralisation remains highly challenging, and that developing appropriate institutional capacity to discharge new responsibilities is difficult and often neglected – yet both are crucial to effective decentralisation. Taking a sample of six district institutes of education and training (DIETs) across three states as a case study, this paper explores India's policy and processes of decentralising teacher education. It identifies as major barriers to the emergence of DIETs their recruitment and staffing policies, and contested agendas of power, control and accountability. Yet it also finds evidence from two districts of progress towards establishing productive partnerships, in an emerging process of decentralisation that is allowing the DIETs to play a significant role in supporting teachers. Here, the DIET idea is justified, and the potential of a decentralised teacher education system to improve systemic accountability towards quality improvement and primary teachers is demonstrated.