Basic Instinct: How middle-tier bureaucrats implement learning reforms

This study shows how middle-tier bureaucrats in India implement learning reforms by translating complex instructional goals into simplified, compliance-oriented routines. It demonstrates how bureaucrats’ limited pedagogical knowledge and performance pressures shape what reforms become in practice, even when motivation and political commitment are high.

Under review

Abstract

Across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), governments are under pressure to address a “global learning crisis” by improving children’s foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN). Recent reforms position middle-tier bureaucrats – district- and block-level officials who link state policy with schools – as key agents of instructional improvement. Yet, despite their growing centrality, little is known about how these actors interpret and implement learning reforms. 

This paper examines how middle-tier bureaucrats in India made sense of and enacted the NIPUN Bharat Mission, the country’s flagship FLN reform launched in 2021. Drawing on qualitative data collected between 2022 and 2024 from two states (Haryana and Jharkhand), including in-depth interviews and field observations with 25 bureaucrats, the paper applies a cognitive approach to analyse how actors’ sensemaking shaped implementation. 

Findings reveal that bureaucrats were motivated by the mission’s emphasis on foundational learning but interpreted it narrowly through limited pedagogical knowledge, compliance-driven norms, and policy signals that prioritized measurable outcomes. Their sensemaking transformed complex instructional-support tasks – such as mentoring teachers or monitoring classroom practice – into simplified, codifiable, and data-oriented routines. At the same time, bureaucrats exercised discretion to balance state demands with teachers’ realities, displaying empathy and moral judgment even as they reproduced conventional practices. 

The study contributes to comparative education and policy implementation research by positioning bureaucratic sensemaking - rather than capacity or compliance – as a key mechanism linking reform design and practice. It highlights the cognitive and epistemic limits of bureaucratic engagement with pedagogical reform, arguing that motivation alone cannot substitute for domain-specific understanding.