A Study of Parents' Private-Public School Choice Post Enrollment in India

Sharnic D, Vishakha Agarwal

Abstract: This paper aims to identify the factors that lead to the inter-sectoral switch (switch from a private school to a public school or vice-versa) in primary schools, especially in the economically poor section of the society. The results show that children withhigher cognitive ability scores are more likely to be shifted to a private school whenthe household does not have a strong credit constraint. Also, a strong negative genderbias against switching of female children to private schools is seen from the results.The paper contributes to the existing school choice debate by suggesting that parentsperceive the quality of private schools to be better than that of public schools in India.

File: Econ_SNU_WP2.pdf