Why a common admission test could worsen higher ed access
The academic year for most school children in India has just begun. After a pandemic-induced gap of two years, children are again in classrooms. In the meantime, however, one significant change has been instituted for students in their final year (12th standard) of the high school. As proposed under the New Education Policy 2020 (NEP), a Common Undergraduate Entrance Test (CUET), a single-window opportunity for admission to 53 central universities is now in operation.
The objective is to provide an equal chance to all children for entry into higher education, irrespective of the school system or the types of the school board they would have studied in. While the idea is similar to that of SAT which high school children in the United States (US) take, the US colleges use the SAT test scores alongside the high school results for making the final decision. Under the NEP, the results of the CUET would alone decide the college admissions. In this situation, the quality of schooling and efforts taken by parents to prepare children for the entrance exam would be vital for a good score in the CUET.
What does the current evidence suggest in terms of the quality of school education in India and the requirement for additional academic help in terms of private tuition? In this article, we investigate the above questions using data from NSS 75th round survey on Household Social Consumption: Education on 1,09,595 school-going children in the age group of 6 to 18 years old in 2017-18.
In line with what is already known, we find that only 35% of children were studying in government schools in urban India in 2017-18, but in rural areas the same proportion was around 72%. Around 32% of parents who had enrolled children in a private school listed the inferior quality of education in the government schools as the top reason for their decision and another 5% listed it as the second most important reason. Clearly, unless the revised school curriculum and its delivery in the government schools improve, the CUET may lead to a further exodus of students away from government schools.
In addition to school fees and other related expenditures, parents also pay for ‘shadow schooling’ or private tutoring either to ensure children don’t lag behind or that they gain a competitive edge over peers. We consider expenditure incurred on private tuition to include private coaching, courses on higher/additional studies, and those other than the basic course of education. We find that around 31% of 15-18-yearolds in government schools were enrolled in private tutoring while the same was around 24.5% of children from private schools in 2017-18. This is the age when typically, the preparation for the competitive exams and board exams for entry into higher education begins.
One of the critical factors which determine if parents invest in private tutoring is their socio-economic background. Parents with higher income levels have higher affordability to invest in children’s education, but may also have a higher ability to help their children with their school work due to their own higher education levels.
We find an inverted U curve in terms of the proportion of children enrolled in private tuition and their mothers’ education levels, peaking for children whose mothers are educated up to the upper primary. Among children (15-18 years) in private schools, the least proportion (13%) enrolled in private tutoring are those whose mothers had completed at least a higher secondary school education or above. This is suggestive of educated mothers being able to help children in their school work.
In the case of children in government schools as well, while an inverted U relationship exists between mothers’ education and enrollment in private tuition, affordability seems to be a major driving factor with children with mothers who have not completed primary schools having the least enrollment in private tutoring. It also may be that even when mothers have completed higher secondary education, a higher proportion of children attending government schools are from poorer backgrounds, requiring mothers to be in paid work and hence, leaving less time for taking children’s studies. Also, mothers themselves may also have studied in government schools and lacking in quality education to be able to help their children in school work.
In terms of the expenditure on private tutoring, considering only the sample of children who went to private tuition, the average annual expenditure of a child studying in the government school in the age group of 15-18 years old was just over Rs 10,000, which is less than onethird of the average expenditure for children in private schools. However, this amount is more than half of the annual education expenditure for children in government schools. While government education is subsidized, its poor quality or the perception of it means what parents save on school fees, is spent on private tuition.
In the case of students in private schools, the average expenditure on private tuition comprised around 1/3rd of total education expenditure. In absolute terms, however, the parents of children in private schools spend around 40% more on private tuition. Overall, both in terms of the spending and the quality of schooling and private tutoring, children who are enrolled in private schools have an advantage over children form government schools when it comes to the preparation of competitive exams.
Given the above situation, the key question for the policymakers is how to ensure that a new CUET tuition industry like that of JEE/NEET coaching centers does not mushroom all over India undermining the core schooling system and that students from poorer backgrounds and low quality schools are not adversely affected.