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Expanding Education Market and Parental Choice for Secondary Schools in India: Evidence from IHDS Data

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Universal Secondary Education in India

Abstract

This chapter explores parental choice for secondary schools in India, particularly in the context of an expanding private school education market. Using India Human Development Survey (IHDS) data, the study examines the factors that parents consider important in making choice for secondary schools for their offsprings. To capture the heterogeneity, I analyse the effect separately for region (rural/urban), gender and economic status of the households. The probit results find that female students are 3.8 percentage points less likely to be enrolled in private schools than boys in secondary education, and this difference is more in rural areas and among poor households. We also find that the choice for secondary schools is strongly determined by the paying capacity of the households—students from top income quintile are 21 percentage points more likely to access private secondary schools than the students belonging to the bottom income quintile, and this gap is higher in urban areas than rural areas. This study shows quite conclusively that the expansion of private schools has made significant changes in the parental aspirations and choice for secondary schools in India.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For details on the variables used in the regression, see Table 6 in the appendix. Summary statistics of the variables used in the probit estimation is given in Table 7.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 110067, India

    Pradeep Kumar Choudhury

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  1. Pradeep Kumar Choudhury
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Correspondence to Pradeep Kumar Choudhury .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Council for Social Development, New Delhi, Delhi, India

    Jandhyala B. G. Tilak

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.

Table 2 Distribution of enrolment by types of secondary schools and gender in rural and urban India
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Table 3 Distribution of enrolment by types of secondary schools and educational attainment of the head of the household
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Table 4 Distribution of enrolment by types of secondary schools and asset quintile of the household
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Table 5 Distribution of enrolment by types of secondary schools and social group
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Table 6 Notation of the variables used in the probit model
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Table 7 Summary statistics of the variables used in the probit estimation
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Choudhury, P.K. (2020). Expanding Education Market and Parental Choice for Secondary Schools in India: Evidence from IHDS Data. In: Tilak, J. (eds) Universal Secondary Education in India. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5366-0_6

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