IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/27377.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Can Greater Access to Education Be Inequitable? New Evidence from India’s Right to Education Act

Author

Listed:
  • Chirantan Chatterjee
  • Eric A. Hanushek
  • Shreekanth Mahendiran

Abstract

India moved to a constitutional guarantee of universal basic education with the Right to Education (RTE) Act in 2009 that called for full access of children aged 6-14 to free schooling. This paper considers the offsetting effects from induced expansion of private tutoring that limited gains in educational equity from RTE. We develop a unique database of registrations of new private educational institutions offering tutorial services by local district between 2001-2015. We estimate the causal impact of RTE on private supplemental education by comparing the growth of tutorial institutions in highly competitive educational markets to that in less competitive educational markets. We find a strong impact of RTE on the private tutoring market and show that this holds across alternative definitions of highly competitive districts and a variety of robustness checks, sensitivity analyses, and controls. Finally, we provide descriptive evidence that these private tutoring schools do increase the achievement (and competitiveness) of students able to afford them.

Suggested Citation

  • Chirantan Chatterjee & Eric A. Hanushek & Shreekanth Mahendiran, 2020. "Can Greater Access to Education Be Inequitable? New Evidence from India’s Right to Education Act," NBER Working Papers 27377, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27377
    Note: DEV ED LS PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w27377.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philippe Aghion & Robin Burgess & Stephen J. Redding & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2008. "The Unequal Effects of Liberalization: Evidence from Dismantling the License Raj in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1397-1412, September.
    2. Abhijeet Singh, 2020. "Learning More with Every Year: School Year Productivity and International Learning Divergence," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(4), pages 1770-1813.
    3. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Shawn Cole & Esther Duflo & Leigh Linden, 2007. "Remedying Education: Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments in India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1235-1264.
    4. Karthik Muralidharan & Abhijeet Singh & Alejandro J. Ganimian, 2019. "Disrupting Education? Experimental Evidence on Technology-Aided Instruction in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(4), pages 1426-1460, April.
    5. Sunwoong Kim & Ju-Ho Lee, 2010. "Private Tutoring and Demand for Education in South Korea," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(2), pages 259-296, January.
    6. Jayachandran, Seema, 2014. "Incentives to teach badly: After-school tutoring in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 190-205.
    7. Mehtabul Azam, 2016. "Private Tutoring: Evidence from India," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(4), pages 739-761, November.
    8. Manisha Shah & Bryce Steinberg, 2019. "The Right to Education Act: Trends in Enrollment, Test Scores, and School Quality," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 109, pages 232-238, May.
    9. Das, Jishnu & Zajonc, Tristan, 2010. "India shining and Bharat drowning: Comparing two Indian states to the worldwide distribution in mathematics achievement," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 175-187, July.
    10. Geeta Gandhi Kingdon, 2020. "The Private Schooling Phenomenon in India: A Review," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(10), pages 1795-1817, October.
    11. Hai-Anh Dang & F. Halsey Rogers, 2008. "The Growing Phenomenon of Private Tutoring: Does It Deepen Human Capital, Widen Inequalities, or Waste Resources?," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 23(2), pages 161-200, April.
    12. Nagaraj, R & Srinivasan, T N, 2017. "Measuring India’s GDP growth: Unpacking the Analytics & Data Issues behind a Controversy that Refuses to Go Away," India Policy Forum, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 13(1), pages 73-128.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mandikiana, Brian W., 2021. "Choice and expenditure: A double hurdle model of private tutoring in Qatar," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 1-15.
    2. de Barros, Andreas & Ganimian, Alejandro J., 2023. "The foundational math skills of Indian children," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    3. Mehtabul Azam, 2016. "Private Tutoring: Evidence from India," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(4), pages 739-761, November.
    4. Pallegedara, Asankha & Mottaleb, Khondoker Abdul, 2018. "Patterns and determinants of private tutoring: The case of Bangladesh households," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 43-50.
    5. Indal Kumar & Indrani Roy Chowdhury, 2021. "Shadow Education in India: Participation and Socioeconomic Determinants," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 16(2), pages 244-272, August.
    6. Dang,Hai-Anh H. & King,Elizabeth M. & Dang,Hai-Anh H. & King,Elizabeth M., 2013. "Incentives and teacher effort : further evidence from a developing country," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6694, The World Bank.
    7. Yuan, Cheng & Zhang, Lei, 2015. "Public education spending and private substitution in urban China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 124-139.
    8. Karan Singhal & Upasak Das, 2019. "Revisiting the Role of Private Schooling on Children Learning Outcomes: Evidence from Rural India," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 20(2), pages 274-302, September.
    9. Dang, Hai-Anh H., 2013. "Private tutoring in Vietnam : a review of current issues and its major correlates," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6618, The World Bank.
    10. Somdeep Chatterjee, 2018. "Do Private Tutors Enhance English Language Ability? Regression Discontinuity Evidence From A Policy Experiment In India," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(2), pages 139-149, April.
    11. Tahir Andrabi & Jishnu Das & Asim Ijaz Khwaja, 2017. "Report Cards: The Impact of Providing School and Child Test Scores on Educational Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(6), pages 1535-1563, June.
    12. Michael P Keane & Sonya Krutikova & Timothy Neal, 2018. "The impact of child work on cognitive development: results from four Low to Middle Income countries," IFS Working Papers W18/29, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    13. Sabrin Beg & Waqas Halim & Adrienne M. Lucas & Umar Saif, 2022. "Engaging Teachers with Technology Increased Achievement, Bypassing Teachers Did Not," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 61-90, May.
    14. Verónica Cabezas & José Ignacio Cuesta & Francisco Gallego, 2021. "Does Short-Term School Tutoring have Medium-Term Effects? Experimental Evidence from Chile," Documentos de Trabajo 565, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
    15. Nerea Gómez-Fernández & Mauro Mediavilla, 2018. "Do information and communication technologies (ICT) improve educational outcomes? Evidence for Spain in PISA 2015," Working Papers 2018/20, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    16. Ferman, Bruno & Finamor, Lucas & Lima, Lycia, 2019. "Are Public Schools Ready to Integrate Math Classes with Khan Academy?," MPRA Paper 94736, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Mo, Di & Bai, Yu & Shi, Yaojiang & Abbey, Cody & Zhang, Linxiu & Rozelle, Scott & Loyalka, Prashant, 2020. "Institutions, implementation, and program effectiveness: Evidence from a randomized evaluation of computer-assisted learning in rural China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    18. Tahir Andrabi & Jishnu Das & Asim Ijaz Khwaja, 2012. "What Did You Do All Day?: Maternal Education and Child Outcomes," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(4), pages 873-912.
    19. Cardim, Joana & Molina-Millán, Teresa & Vicente, Pedro C., 2023. "Can technology improve the classroom experience in primary education? An African experiment on a worldwide program," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    20. Chakraborty, Tanika & Jayaraman, Rajshri, 2019. "School feeding and learning achievement: Evidence from India's midday meal program," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 249-265.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods
    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27377. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.