Determinants of School Choice: Evidence from India

This paper explores the relative roles of quality of schools and household characteristics on the household’s choice of school in India. I use a standard binary choice logit model to estimate the effect of income on private school enrolment after controlling for school attributes and other household characteristics. I find that per capita income is the most important predictor of whether a household chooses a public or private school. Using per capita consumption as a proxy for income, the results show that a doubling of per capita income increases the probability of choosing a private school over a public school about 10%. I also find that mother’s education is more important than father’s education in the decision on the choice of school. Quality of schools also matters, but is a relatively weaker predictor of household choice.