Determinants of Private School Choice in India: All about the Family Backgrounds?

ABSTRACT

This article examines the determinants of private school choice for elementary school students in India with emphasis on school characteristics. We also analyze the gender differences in the demand for private schools among the households, a relatively less explored issue in the school choice literature in India. We find that private schools are preferred by families when they have high teacher attendance, employ local teachers, and have better parental participation in parent-teacher associations/meetings. Our results suggest that better/quality education and English as the medium of instruction are major factors in influencing parents to choose private schools. While female students are less likely to attend private schools, the gender gap narrows as family economic status and the mother’s education improve.

KEYWORDS:

• Private School
• school choice
• family background
• teacher characteristics
• gender
• India

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [ICPSR] at https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36151.v6 [doi], V6 [2018-08-08].

Desai, S. & Vanneman, R. (2015). India Human Development Survey-II (IHDS-II), 2011-12. ICPSR36151-v6. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 31.

Disclosure statement

We wish to confirm that there are no known conflicts of interest.

Notes

1. For a detail discussion on “budget school” or “low-fee private school (LFPS)” see, Dixon and Tooley (2005), Tooley and Dixon (2007), Nambissan and Ball (2010), and Nambissan (2012).

2. https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/odisha/2019/nov/20/odisha-488-schools-shut-down-in-2019-20-academic-session-2064380.html (accessed 29 August 2020).

3. Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2018 in India finds that while 65% standard V children in private schools could read a standard II level text; only 44.2% children in accessing government school (Annual Status of Education Report [ASER], 2019).

4. The first round of the India Human development Survey (IHDS) data was collected in 2005.

5. The government schools include both government and government-aided schools with the student enrollment share of 59% and 3%, respectively.

6. Convent and Madarsas enroll only about 3% of the children in the total sample. We have not included these two categories in our analysis as they are faith-based educational institutions and therefore, may portray a different pattern of demand.

7. The caste system in India is an old social stratification primarily based on the rituals followed by different groups and their engagements with different occupations. Over the time, the discourse of caste has been shifted from ritual hierarchy and social discrimination to an instrument to mobilize people for economic and political gain. Currently, for administrative or official purpose the caste system in India is classified into four major groups namely Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and General. It is well recognized that the SC, ST, and OBC households fare relatively poorly in several socio-economic indicators when compared with the general category households. Therefore, SCs, STs, and OBCs are given special treatments by the government of India in many welfare fields like education, health, and employment, etc. (Choudhury, 2016, p. 545).

8. This index is based on the values of 36 different kinds of household assets like quality of house such as “pakka” house (i.e., made of concrete) or “kaccha” house (i.e., made of mud), TV, refrigerator, car, laptop/computer, and AC, etc. The index value ranges from ‘0ʹ to ‘33ʹ. An index value close to ‘0ʹ indicates the poorest households while near to ‘33ʹ indicate the richest households. Research studies indicate that family assets are a better indicator of the long-term economic resources of a family as compared to income (Nam & Huang, 2009).

9. Anganwadi Centers (AWCs) were started as part of the Integrated Child Development Services program of the Government of India in 1975 with the main objective to improve the nutritional and health status of the children in the age group of 0–6 years. Currently, India has 1.34 million AWCs covering around 84 million children.

10. The disaggregated effect of household assets and mother’s education for male and female children by using predicted probabilities is provided later in this section.

11. A teacher is local if he/she lives in the same village/same urban area where the school is located.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and publication of this article.