Rahul Mukhopadhyay

This is the first part of a conversation between Yamini Aiyar and Rahul Mukhopadhyay. It takes Aiyar’s recent book ‘Lessons in State Capacity from Delhi’s Schools’ as a starting point. The conversation explores her in-depth experience of working with the education administration system and shares the insights this experience has for civil society organizations (CSOs).

The article critically examines the push to scale CSO-led education programs. It highlights tensions between quantity and quality, and urges careful choice of scaling pathways to ensure contextual relevance, depth, and sustainability.

This article examines how CSOs work with education officials across levels, highlighting challenges and everyday practices. It foregrounds the work and role of supportive bureaucrats in the work of CSOs working towards positive educational change.

This is the third part of a conversation between Yamini Aiyar and Rahul Mukhopadhyay. It takes Aiyar’s recent book ‘Lessons in State Capacity from Delhi’s Schools’ as a starting point. In this part of the conversation, drawing on Delhi’s school reforms, she reflects on how civil society organizations and education bureaucracies can collaborate more effectively. She highlights the challenges of translating reform ideas into practice and argues for cultivating ‘interstitial spaces’ of dialogue, trust, and sustained engagement to enable meaningful institutional change.

In their context-setting piece, Suraj Jacob and Rahul Mukhopadhyay discuss three important aspects of looking at impact in the social sector—program design, implementation, and social consequences—across the three axes of method, use, and value.

The ‘Discussion’ section captures conversations and deliberations on topics like “Emerging Priorities in School Education in India over the Next 5–10 Years,” which will be of interest to all of us who work in the domains of education and development.