Policies and programmes pursuing the universalisation of elementary education (UEE) in developing nations have been influenced by a set of complex forces in international, state, and local arenas. This paper explores how a large-scale standardised assessment programme shaped by international and market-oriented discourses has been differently re-worked in the south Indian state of Karnataka. We draw on observation and interview data with educators and administrators to shed some light on their roles in reconstituting the meaning and practice of this programme. The intended frameworks of "borrowed" education policies are not always reproduced or sustained in local contexts. Our paper shows how policies, rather than "borrowed" from one context to another, undergo a process of "translation" involving the contextualisation and inevitable transformation of policies. (Contains 7 notes and 1 table.)