Public-Private Schools in Rural India

Abstract

This paper presents results from a nationally-representative survey of rural private primary schools in India conducted in 2003. 28% of the population of rural India has access to fee-charging private schools in the same village. Nearly 50% of the rural private schools in our sample having been established 5 or fewer years before the time of the survey, suggesting rapid growth in the number of private schools. Private schools are more common in areas with poor public school performance. Richer states are less likely to have rural private schools. Compared to public schools, private schools pay much lower teacher salaries; have lower pupil teacher ratios; and less multi-grade teaching. Private school teachers are 2 to 8 percentage points less likely to be absent than teachers in public schools and 6 to 9 percentage points more likely to be engaged in teaching activity at any given point in time. They are more likely to hold a college degree than public-school teachers, but much less likely to have a formal teacher training certificate. Children in private school have higher attendance rates. They have higher test scores, even after controlling for observable family and school characteristics.