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This chapter explores language policy-making processes in the Indian context, implementation issues and the place and role of English in school education. Language in education policy derives from the Indian Constitution which guarantees linguistic rights to all citizens; most importantly, members of minority groups (both religious and linguistic) are granted a special right to be educated in their mother tongue.

In 2006, when the Hewlett Foundation started the Quality Education in Developing Countries initiative, one of the initiative’s goals was to help answer precisely this question. From 2007 to 2013, combining resources with co-funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Foundation supported eleven school-level approaches to improving early learning, accompanied by ten rigorous evaluations.