Household Expenditure on Secondary Education in Haryana (India): Levels, Patterns and Determinants

Abstract

Existing studies on household expenditure on education in India largely focus on the elementary and tertiary levels of education. Until recently, researchers have paid little consideration to examining the issue of household investment at the secondary level of education, especially in the sub-national context. Using a recent primary survey encompassing quantitative and qualitative data, this article examines the levels, patterns and determinants of parental allocation of financial resources for secondary education in Haryana, India. We find that households spend 7.22% of their annual family income per student per annum in secondary education—with stark differences between government (2.26%) and private schools (10.68%). Besides, the complex interplay of socio-economic and cultural factors in the state leads to systematic patterns in the said expenditures, intensifying pro-male gender disparities and deepening the hegemony of the privileged sections (i.e., in terms of a household’s caste, class and educational capital), particularly at the urban and intermediate levels. The study emphasizes the role of policies and practices of the state in pragmatically aiming at the removal of the aforesaid inequalities, inter-alia, by regulating the commercialization of school education in the non-state sector.

The Price of Learning: Household Expenditures on Secondary Education in Cambodia

“…Our estimated result also shows that as the number of school-aged children in a household increases, the amount spent on education per child tends to decrease. Existing knowledge revealed that as the number of schoolaged children in increases, the amount that can be invested per child decreases (e.g., Pallegedara & Mottaleb, 2018;Singh et al, 2022). Inevitably, the number of children negatively influences household educational expenditure, especially as low-income families have minimal amounts to invest in their children's education.…”

Neoliberalism, Compulsory Education and Compulsion to Pay: Magnitude, Patterns and Determinants of Household Expenditure in Indian Punjab

“…Studies conducted in several other countries show that basic schooling has not been free to households in the majority of nations, even in those with policies promoting free education (EFA Global Monitoring Report Team, 2015;Larsen, 2013). Besides the course fee, parents have to pay several out-of-pocket expenses, including costs for books, uniforms, transportation and private tuition (Gill, 2017a(Gill, , 2017b(Gill, , 2019Singh et al, 2022;Tilak, 2021). The household costs of education in India and other countries have adverse effects on socio-economically disadvantaged sections, even for the clientele of low-cost private schools (Choudhury & Kumar, 2021;Narwana & Gill, 2021).…”

“…This segment gives a concise review of the empirical research related to private investments in education, both in India and other countries. The household cost of education is known to be a vital element of educational funding in countries like India, where parental aspirations are high and educational expenses constitutea substantial portion of household budgets (Singh et al, 2022; Tilak, 2002). Nevertheless, this phenomenon was virtually neglected in India as the researchers and policymakers held the opinion that the state subsidises education through substantial public expenditure (Mukherjee & Sengupta, 2021).…”

“…Underlining the role of caste in the Indian context, several studies (Gangopadhyay & Sarkar, 2014; Gill, 2017a; Singh et al, 2022) have found that SC households invest significantly less in human capital formation through education than other households. Gangopadhyay and Sarkar (2014), for instance, based on a cross-sectional study conducted in West Bengal (India), found thatSC households, after duly controlling the socio-economic background of the respondents, spend less on education than their upper caste counterparts.…”

“…More importantly, it is the ‘for-profit’ education sector within the private sector that is experiencing rapid growth, while philanthropic and charity-based private schools appear to be disappearing (Raina & Parul, 2019; Singh et al, 2022; Tilak, 2003). The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has highlighted the issue of unregulated expansion of for-profit private schools in India, and how it results in the economic exploitation of parents and in the marginalisation of underprivileged sections in such settings.…”