Understanding the Relationship between Public Trust and Shadow Education in India

• In Event: Learning in and Out of Formal Schooling

Proposal

Research Motivation:
In many countries across the globe, markets through non-state actors in education have emerged not only in the realm of private schools but also in the increasing presence of shadow education. For this paper, shadow education can be understood as fee-based supplementary education that students attend in subjects they study in their mainstream education (Dang & Rogers, 2008).
The expansion of education institutions due to the goals in the Education for All Movement has led to the common belief that education provided in public schools is inadequate and unable to meet the aspirations of students and their families (Chatterjee et al., 2020.). This resulted in some families opting for private schools while others relied on supplementary shadow education classes. It is argued that shadow education expands inequity despite the formal presence of free education through public schools (Bhorkar & Bray, 2018; Chatterjee et al., 2020.).
In India, along with private schools, private tutoring plays an important role in shaping the current state of the education system. Based on the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) data of 2007/08, 27.7% of urban students between the ages of 6-24 took private coaching, whereas 15.7% took private coaching in rural India (Azam, 2016).
It can be debated if parents exercise complete choice in sending their child to a public/private school as it is a function of income and availability of free public schools. However, sending one’s child for shadow education classes is a choice that is exercised by parents. This paper explores how confidence in the government schooling systems affects the schooling behavior of children in households. The primary research question for this paper is: What is the relationship between the confidence families have in Government schools in India to provide good education and their shadow education practices?
With steady increase in shadow education practices globally, this paper will be an appropriate fit for the CIES 2024 as it provides nuanced insights on how households engage with public and private school systems, and shadow education systems.

Theoretical framework:
Multiple stakeholders, policies and decisions go into the process of a child receiving quality education. To understand the relationship between confidence in public education systems and schooling patterns for families, I draw on the theme of trust in government institutions.
The idea of trust in political systems emerges from the work of political scientists in systems theory. Easton (1965) writes about how the legitimacy of political systems relies on how much citizens trust their government to make the wisest decisions most of the time. Trust is often the most important indicator of how people perceive the quality of institutions in their countries. High trust in systems is not a necessary outcome of democratic governance as often citizens report low trust in institutions only because they are in democratic institutions (Kelleher & Wolak, 2007; OECD, 2021).
In India, research has shown that households from less developed states have a higher level of trust in the Government. Households with higher adult education have also shown to have lower confidence in the government as compared to families with lower levels of adult education (Kumar et al., 2021).

Data:
For this paper, I have used the Indian Human Development Survey- Round II (IHDS II), which was conducted in 2011-12, to analyze the research question (Desai, et.al,. 2018). The IHDS is a nationally representative survey in India of about 41,554 households and 150,995 individuals across India and includes an array of questions related to education, household income and other socio-economic status.

Data Analysis and Initial Findings:
This paper presents an in-depth descriptive data analysis to understand patterns regarding public trust and schooling in India.
In the country-wide dataset, I observe that 30,263 students go to public schools with a mean fee of INR 487 and a median of INR 35. In comparison, close to 17,300 students attend private schools and pay mean fees of INR 4944 and a median of INR 3,000.
I note that more than 80% of households with a per capita consumption of less than INR 10000 do not spend any money on tuition. Furthermore, less than 1% of families spend more than INR 2,500 in this category. The data indicates that 54% of families who have a per capita consumption of INR 50,000 do not spend any money on tuitions, and 24% spend more than INR 2,500. There is a moderate correlation between families with higher per-capita monthly consumption and private school fees. The correlation between tuition expenses for students who attend public schools and per-capita household consumption is also moderate at 0.23 and is significant. In line with previous findings, this suggests that parents who cannot afford sending their children to private schools, tend to compensate by sending their children to after-school tuitions (Majumdar, 2017).
In low per-capita consumption states in India like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, irrespective of the amount of money families spend in tuitions, more families express low confidence in public schools. Households in high-income states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu express a high level of confidence in public schools to provide good education. However, this pattern changes in other high-income states like Punjab and Haryana, where we notice that as the household expenditure on tuitions increase, the percentage of households with a high level of trust in the government school system reduces. Odisha tends to be an outlier as despite being a poor state and families have little to no expenses in public schooling. Additionally, families across all categories of expenses in tuitions display a high confidence in Government Schools.
A higher number of households in urban areas have lower confidence in Government schools to provide good education when compared to households in rural India. This could be driven by choice, competition, and aspirations for households in urban India which deserves further in-depth analysis.

Author

• Aanchal Gidra, Michigan State University