By Dr. Sreehari Ravindranath, Ms Apoorva Bhatnagar, Dr. Joseph Thomas Rijo and Mr Amit V. Kumar, Dream a Dream, India
Education systems increasingly rely on multiple data sources to understand what happens in schools. Administrative records show attendance and attainment, teachers provide insights into classroom practices, school leaders report on institutional conditions, and student surveys offer a window into young people’s experiences. Interpreting data is relatively straightforward when these sources point in the same direction. But that is not always the case. Findings from the OECD Survey on Social and Emotional Skills (SSES) 2023 provide a striking example. In Delhi, India, nearly two-thirds of 15-year-old students reported involvement in bullying as a victim, perpetrator or both, the highest level among 16 participating education systems. Yet fewer than 5% of school leaders reported that intimidation or bullying occurred monthly or more often among students in their schools.
Although the contrast is stark, it does not mean that one group’s description is more accurate than the other’s. It raises a broader question: What can education systems learn when students and institutional actors experience, observe or interpret the same school so differently?
Different perspectives can reveal different realities
Student and school leader reports can differ for several reasons. In the SSES, students were asked about specific aggressive behaviours, including being hit, pushed, threatened, made fun of or excluded. Not every such interaction will necessarily be understood as bullying by students or school leaders. Some may never come to principals’ attention. Differences in definitions, frequency, visibility and reporting can contribute to a gap in perceptions.
People’s positions within a school naturally affect their perspectives. Principals observe institutional patterns but cannot observe every student interaction. Teachers have detailed knowledge of classrooms and relationships. Students experience not just classrooms but corridors, playgrounds, friendships, peer groups and digital interactions in ways that adults cannot see. For everyone involved, some aspects of school life are visible, others less so.
Differences between data sources are not necessarily a problem. Sometimes, the gap in perspectives contains useful information about how an institution functions – and which experiences are visible to whom.
What disagreement can teach us
At Dream a Dream, we work with young people, teachers, schools and whole public education systems in India. We have learned that no single perspective provides a complete account of what happens within a school.
However, many actors in education lack capacity to interpret different types of evidence together. This is especially the case when they diverge. Then, analysis must begin with curiosity rather than resolution. Are different groups interpreting the same behaviour differently? Does one group have access to experiences that another rarely sees? How can student experiences become more visible to teachers and school leaders?
These questions extend beyond bullying. Students and adults in schools often perceive belonging, relationships, safety, classroom climate, well-being and support differently. As education systems collect more information, they must learn to handle data discrepancies rather than erase or average them out.
Building systems that can listen across perspectives
This calls for a new “evidence culture”. One where data generates questions as well as answers. If young people’s perspectives are collected primarily to confirm what institutions already know, the value of student voice may be lost.
Education systems therefore need more than mechanisms for collecting student voice. They need routines for examining divergent evidence. The measure of a listening system is not whether every perspective agrees. It is whether disagreement leads to true inquiry, trust, and a credible institutional response.
