The role of governments in enabling social movements: Insights from the Shikshagraha Initiative
At the Government Outcomes Lab, we are exploring how governments interact with civil society to support meaningful, community-led change in public services. In partnership with ShikshaLokam, this project focuses on Shikshagraha, a growing movement across India to demand improved quality in public education.
Through fieldwork in multiple Indian states, we are investigating how different levels of government either enable or constrain local partnerships between bureaucrats, grassroots organisers, school leaders, and civil society groups. With key themes including state-society relations, decentralisation, and system resilience, our research seeks to understand the conditions under which community aspirations can translate into systemic education reform.
The research combines in-depth interviews with key stakeholders and regional focus groups to test and refine our findings. This approach helps us capture diverse perspectives from across the education ecosystem, including government officials, civil society organisations, philanthropic funders, and community leaders - all while ensuring relevance for policy and practice.
The project will culminate in a series of outputs designed to inform action:
- A policy brief synthesising key insights on the role of government in supporting social movements
- A comparative analysis situating Shikshagraha within global experiences of collective impact
- Practitioner engagement through convenings at forums such as InvokED, the Skoll World Forum, and the Social Outcomes Conference
- Peer-reviewed academic publications
By bridging research and practice, this work aims to develop a practical playbook for local-level education reform. It will offer policymakers, civil society leaders, and grassroots advocates evidence-based strategies to strengthen state-society partnerships for education.
