Mainstreaming Education Vouchers in India: A Culture Compatible Education Policy Framework to Enhance Learning Outcomes

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-477-8_16How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Education Vouchers Scheme (EVS); National Education Policy 2020; Public Policy; Accountability

Abstract

As India advances its economic growth agenda, the education and skill development sector emerges as a strategic lever for inclusive and sustainable development. While the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024 reports modest improvements in gross enrolment ratios and partial recovery of learning outcomes, it also highlights significant challenges: foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) deficiencies, rising dropout rates, and entrenched structural issues such as gender disparity, digital exclusion, poor teacher accountability, and infrastructure deficits. These barriers constrain the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. This paper proposes a phased, evidence-based implementation of the Education Voucher Scheme (EVS) to address these systemic inefficiencies and equity gaps. EVS reallocates education funding directly to parents, enabling school choice and fostering competitive incentives among educational providers. The approach is grounded in global best practices and validated through Indian pilot studies in Andhra Pradesh and Delhi. By realigning public expenditure with performance and access goals, EVS offers a mechanism to optimise educational outcomes under constrained fiscal conditions. The research contributes a detailed financial modelling framework, mapping unit voucher costs to existing education budget allocations, and outlines a five-phase rollout strategy prioritising high-need populations, including rural, tribal, and urban economically weaker sections. Furthermore, the study integrates a robust monitoring and evaluation framework utilising technology, biometric-linked student registries, and outcome-based school accreditation metrics to ensure transparency, reduce leakages, and track learning gains over time. Targeting education finance reform through EVS holds potential for catalysing accountability, improving cost-effectiveness, and promoting equity in access to quality education. This study provides actionable insights for policymakers, education economists, and funding agencies committed to realising the goals of NEP 2020, Sustainable Development Goal 4, and the broader Viksit Bharat 2047 vision. Finally, the Civilisational Design Thinking approach anchored on Indian Knowledge System (IKS) principles is used to assess cultural compatibility of proposed policy to Indian context and adherence to Dharmic values.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Arpit Awasthi
AU  - Chaitanya Solanki
AU  - Battula Kalyana Chakravarthy
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/11/10
TI  - Mainstreaming Education Vouchers in India: A Culture Compatible Education Policy Framework to Enhance Learning Outcomes
BT  - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference, Anubhuti: Revitalizing Indian Knowledge Systems for the Modern World (ICIKS 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 212
EP  - 237
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-477-8_16
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-477-8_16
ID  - Awasthi2025
ER  -