Bihar's educational reforms: Nitish Kumar's high grades, and then a dip

The story of Bihar's educational reform is a lesson for all reforms done halfway

Sakshi Kumari (16) sees her father maybe for six or seven days twice a year when he returns home from Delhi. “I miss him a lot,” she says. He is a carpenter in a factory. Like many other households in Bihar her mother holds the fort at home: Bringing up the children (Sakshi has an elder sister and a younger brother, who, she says disapprovingly, is “very naughty”); tilling a small piece of land that is on rent from a landlord to supplement the family income; and looking after the in laws. Sakshi is not sure but she thinks the