School Management Committee (SMC) Guidelines 2026 applicability over differently managed schools

• SMC Guidelines 2026 are a Ministry of Education (MoE) framework to decentralise school governance via statutory School Management Committees, transforming SMCs from monitoring bodies into "school community governing institutions".
• Operationalise the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 community-participation vision across nearly 15 lakh schools.
• UPSC relevance: tests RTE Act 2009 architecture (Sec. 21, Sec. 2(n)), Article 30 minority rights, and cooperative federalism in education (Concurrent List, Entry 25).