Why Do Indian Parents Send Their Children To Government Schools But Spend More Money On Private Tutors

India’s tuition culture frequently has a bad name, yet the neighborhood tuition aunty or maths sir is a lifeline for many low-income parents who are unable to assist their children in making up for Covid-induced learning losses. It has gotten to the point that even parents who switched their kids from private to government schools due to cost are prepared to pay for customized instruction.

Mamta Devi, a 40-year-old domestic servant from Zamrudpur in Delhi, is one such parent. Her husband lost his job when the second Covid wave hit the city last year, making it challenging to simply provide their three children with two square meals a day.

Not only Devi’s family, though. About 40% of school children were enrolled in tuition classes as well, according to the 2021 Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), which was based on a survey conducted by the NGO Pratham across 25 states and three union territories. This was higher than the 32.5% reported in the survey’s 2020 edition and the 28.6% reported in the previous year.

This was described in the paper as a natural response to the extended closure of schools beginning in early 2020 because of the Covid epidemic. Notably, the percentage of kids that attend tuition increased by 12.5 percentage points between 2018 and 2021 if their parents fall into the poor education category. The percentage of kids with parents in the high education group increased, although only by 7.2 percentage points.

A second widespread trend—children switching from private to government institutions, where costs are typically substantially lower—coincided with the general increase in tuition.

Data from the Ministry of Education show that during 2019–2020 and 2021–2022, there were 143,240,480 students enrolled in government schools, an increase from 130,931,634 in 2019–2020. This indicates that during this time, 1.23 crore more kids enrolled in government schools. The data shows a decrease in private unaided school enrollment of over 1.81 crores during the same time frame. 4 lakh kids are said to have transferred to government schools this year, only in Delhi.

However, there is a paradox: despite wanting to spend less on education, parents, particularly those from lower-income groups, were nonetheless prepared to pay tuition.

Experts, parents, and tutors point to unequally distributed learning support in government schools and significant learning loss due to school closures for which individualized attention is necessary, however it is unclear whether this trend will continue.

Additionally, as the ASER research also points out, local tuition courses typically have a flexible and variable cost structure, which makes a hybrid education model that combines private coaching and government schools more practical for parents in a volatile economic environment.

News Mania Desk