Academic Monitoring Versus Academic Support: Examining the Changing Role of CRC/BRC Personnel in India
Acceptance: 12/09/2026
Published: 17/10/2026
Abstract
Block Resource Centres (BRCs) and Cluster Resource Centres (CRCs) constitute an important middle-level institutional architecture within India's school education system. Originally conceived under the District Primary Education Programme and subsequently strengthened through Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Samagra Shiksha, these structures were intended to decentralise academic support, facilitate teacher professional development, provide on-site mentoring, and connect schools with district-level academic institutions. In practice, however, the role of Block Resource Centre Coordinators (BRCCs) and Cluster Resource Centre Coordinators (CRCCs) has increasingly involved monitoring, compliance reporting, data collection, programme implementation, and administrative coordination. This article examines the resulting tension between academic monitoring and academic support and explores how the role of BRC/CRC personnel is changing under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, Samagra Shiksha, competency-based education, foundational literacy and numeracy, digital monitoring and continuous professional development (CPD).The article adopts a qualitative conceptual-review and policy-document analysis approach. Evidence is drawn from the National Education Policy 2020, Samagra Shiksha implementation documents, UDISE+ data, NCERT guidelines, and empirical literature concerning teacher mentoring and resource-person systems. The analysis suggests that monitoring and support should not be treated as mutually exclusive functions; rather, monitoring becomes educationally productive when it generates reliable evidence that is converted into context-specific feedback, mentoring, demonstration, collaborative problem-solving, and follow-up. Conversely, monitoring becomes counterproductive when it is reduced to inspection, compliance, documentation, or surveillance. The article proposes a Support-Centred Monitoring Model in which BRC/CRC personnel function primarily as instructional mentors, data-informed facilitators, professional-learning leaders, and connectors between schools and teacher-education institutions. The paper concludes with implications for role redesign, capacity building, workload rationalisation, digital systems, accountability structures, and future empirical research.
Keynote: Academic Monitoring, Academic Support, BRC, CRC, Teacher Professional Development
Author Name:
Swati Mishra ; Dr. Chandan Shrivastava
Pages:
441-448
DOI Number:
10.5281/zenodo.23424269
Country:
India
Orcid:
Full Article
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Writer Name
Swati Mishra ; Dr. Chandan Shrivastava
Pages
441-448
DOI Numbers
10.5281/zenodo.23424269
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