What are the structures, processes, and contexts that have shaped the school education system in India? What is the role of different key stakeholders in the system and what how have different policies for education been formulated over time? How do factors like teacher accountability, school quality, parental choice, academic mentoring and exclusion/​inclusion come to bear on the functioning of schools? With a close look at India, we go over regulatory frameworks, educational indices and data parameters, and inter-state differences in education systems in India. We see how different stakeholders like teachers, education administrators, community, civil society actors and local decentralized structures engage with the institutions and processes of school education. We emphasise policies and programmes such as the Right to Education Act, District Primary Education Programme, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan that have impacted school education in recent decades. This course is a mixture of debates, lectures, panel discussions, workshops and a practicum.