The school education in India has come a long way after its independence. The trajectory of growth that the school set up has been through is exponential in terms of its numbers. However, the quantitative expansion of school infrastructure, enrolment of students and teachers’ availability has somehow not been able to keep itself in tune with the qualitative aspects of education. Though there have numerous efforts to pave way for the quality in education to be put in place and there have been some noticeable success in the desired lines; still the Indian school education system has a long way to go when compared with the parallel knowledge economies of the world.  The qualitative improvement of schooling in terms of scholastic achievement of students, link of secondary education with the rapid changing world outside the boundaries of the school system, curriculum reforms, pedagogical concerns, examination reforms, etc are yet far from satisfactory. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) has witnessed its remarkable success in terms of numbers and this has resulted into the launch of much enthusiastic Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) by the Government in year 2009-10. However the success of the RMSA is yet to be seen. The policy makers come up with lots of roadmaps to improve upon the level and state of education, but the execution of such roadmaps comes across some serious impediments as well. This paper discusses the challenges of the secondary school education in India and contends that the need of the time is to anticipate such roadblocks along with envisioning the roadmaps, so that adequate measures could be taken up while moving ahead with the execution of the reforms. This way the output of the programme could be substantive and satisfactory for the betterment of all the stakeholders of the educational process and that of the society at large. 

KEYWORDS: RMSA, SSA, Gross Enrolment Ratio, Growth Trajectory of Secondary education