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Where Do Young Children Go? Provisioning in Early Childhood Education

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Early Childhood Education and School Readiness in India

Abstract

Parents are increasingly choosing fee-paying private school education over free government school education for their children, and there is evidence of similar shifts in enrolment trends for young children at the preschool stage. This chapter consolidates evidence on early childhood education (ECE) provisioning in India from multiple sources. Specifically, it examines associations between village-level characteristics and private preschool provisioning using data from the India Early Childhood Education Impact (IECEI) study. Our results indicate that significant and positive associations exist between certain infrastructural and demographic characteristics of villages and private preschool provisioning. In the context of increasing privatization of education, identifying supply-side factors associated with private preschools is important for disentangling issues of access and supply from the demand for private preschools.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    ASER collects and reports data on percentage of children enrolled in Balwadis and Anganwadis together. The lack of disaggregated data does not allow for specific reporting of enrolments in Anganwadis.

  2. 2.

    Larger villages, with populations of 2000 or more, were selected for sampling in the study.

  3. 3.

    As per Census 2011, the proportion of SC population in the sampled states is Rajasthan, 17.8%; Telangana, 15.4%; and Assam, 7.2%. The proportion of ST population in the states is 13.5% in Rajasthan, 9.3% in Telangana, and 12.4% in Assam.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. ASER Centre, New Delhi, India

    Purnima Ramanujan

  2. Oxford Policy Management (OPM), New Delhi, India

    Nayan Dave

Authors
  1. Purnima Ramanujan
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  2. Nayan Dave
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. CECED, Ambedkar University Delhi, New Delhi, India

    Venita Kaul

  2. ASER Centre, New Delhi, India

    Suman Bhattacharjea

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Ramanujan, P., Dave, N. (2019). Where Do Young Children Go? Provisioning in Early Childhood Education. In: Kaul, V., Bhattacharjea, S. (eds) Early Childhood Education and School Readiness in India. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7006-9_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7006-9_6

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  • Print ISBN: 978-981-13-7005-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-13-7006-9

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