Over the last two decades, the low fee private schools have witnessed an unprecedented growth in India. The mushrooming of low fee private schools have largely been attributed to factors such as aspirations of middle class parents for English as medium of instruction, better accessibility and quality, and teachers’ accountability etc. However these schools have also drawn a lot of criticism for their untrained teaching staff, faulty teaching methods and uninformed choice among parents. Against this backdrop, this paper explores different dimensions of parental choice for private school. While contesting the popular claims such as medium of instruction and better accessibility being the main determinants of parental choice for private schools, the paper argues that even after controlling for the above mentioned factors parents choose private over public schools. The field evidences suggest that parents’ choice is mainly determined by their lack of faith in government schools. Thus there is an urgent need to address this problem of lack of trust in government sector. The paper also challenges the issue of untrained teaching staff in private schools as field experiences indicates that now more and more private schools are hiring trained teachers.

1. Revisiting the Debate of Private Vs Public
Schooling: Some Unexplored Dimensions
12th UKFIET Conference on Education and Development
Kamlesh Narwana
Research Scholar
Centre for Historical Studies
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi, India

2. •
Unprecedented Growth of Low Fee Private (LFP) School in
India. (Give some number)
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Responsible Factors
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LFP School criticized for
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Aspirations of middle class parents for English medium
Better accessibility and quality
Teachers‟ accountability
Their untrained teaching staff
Faulty teaching methods
Uninformed choice among parents
Study Revisit Public vs Private school by looks into
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The role of English medium in popularity of private schools,
The teachers in LFP and Government schools
Parents perception about Private and Government schools.

3. • Sample Size: 5 government and 4 private unaided schools situated in
semi-urban area. Out of these, two private schools are unrecognized
(eventually missing from School census data i.e. DIES data) and two are
unaided recognized). Besides this, to analyze the impact of Government
English Medium school, one government and two private school
situated in rural setting are also studied.
• The study is largely based on qualitative data collected with the help of
Focused Group Discussion, in-depth interviews and informal
discussions with parents, children, teachers and Head of schools.
• Secondary data (mainly District Information System of
Education, DIES) is also used to analyses the percentage of teaching
staff, Medium-wise private school, number of private schools etc.

4. • Two different Scenarios:
– A) The existence of Hindi medium private schools in the
presence of Hindi medium Government Schools
• All four surveyed private schools in town follow Hindi as medium of
instruction.
• As per DIES data 2010-2011, more than 50 percent of private schools
in town have Hindi medium and have registered high enrollment like
their English counterpart.
– B)The presence of Hindi medium Private schools in presence
of English Medium Government Schools
• In spite of all these major facilities in English medium government
school, there are two Hindi medium private schools in the village
which attracts students in large number. These schools have hardly
witnessed any decrease in their student enrollments in the presence of
English medium Government school.

5. • Different studies (Lall 2000, Mehta 2005, Desai et.al. 2008, Jain
and Saxena 2010, Sarangapani and Winch 2010, Nambissan
2012, Nawani 2013) argued that teachers in low fee private schools
are not professionally trained and have basic educational
qualifications and also not equipped to teach first and second
generation of school goers.
• Out of 4 surveyed schools, two schools had cent percent
professionally qualified teaching staff, third school had 87% and the
fourth school had 40% qualified teaching staff.
• According to DIES 2010-2011, out of total 8 private unaided
schools in research setting, four schools have 100% trained
teachers, three schools had 88% trained teachers. Only one school
had less than 60% qualified teaching staff
• As per DIES Flash Statistics 2010-11, Private unaided schools have
84.40% regular and 82.69% contractual professionally trained
teaching staff in Haryana.

6. • Social composition: three private schools have high
proportion of SC and BC students (School A:
88%, School B: 77% and School C: 74%)
• Economic profile of Students: 85% students‟ parents
are daily wage earners.
• Educational level of parents, 80% parents were
illiterate and 20% of parents were educated up to
Elementary and secondary level

7. • The parents of these children are daily wage labourers, they
treat government school as free crèches where their children are
safe for the whole day with free mid-day meal.
• In government schools, only „residual‟ students take admission.
Those who are really interested in education, go to private
school. These people are not interested in education. These
children mainly come for mid-day meal, stipends and free
stationary.
• The teachers themselves accepted their caste based
discrimination in selecting the School hockey team. In an utter
castiest tone, the interviewed teacher said that “If there is any
student from our caste/community, we can take them in team.
How can we allow these people (students from lower castes) to
play with our children in school team”.

8. • “In my family, no one is educated. My son is the first one to go to school. I
am dependent on him for any matter related to reading and writing. When he
used to go to a government school, he was not even able to read the name of
places on buses, ward numbers and name of doctors in hospitals. My
neighbours used to read and write letters for me. Now he is going to private
school. At least now, he has started deciphering letters and also can help me
out while visiting places like bus stand, hospitals, bank and post offices.”
• When my child used to go to government school, he never used to get any
home work. Now after joining private school, he completes his homework
after school.
• Though I do not get much time to visit school, but whenever I went to the
government school, teachers were never found in the classroom. They are
chatting, playing cards and having tea. However, this is not the case in
private school. Teachers are always in classroom.”

9. •
The growth of private schools is proportional to decrease in the stakeholders‟
faith in public school. The medium of instruction is not always a determining
factor, as disillusioned by the dysfunctional government schools, parents even
prefer Hindi medium private school than English medium government schools.
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The private schools are also now hiring more trained teachers. It can be result of
increasing privatization of teacher Education which eventually has made
obtaining a degree or diploma very easy task.
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The issue of marginalized sections and first generation learners remain
unaddressed even in the presence of trained government teachers. The need of
improving teachers‟ education is essential for improving the experiences of the
marginalized sections.
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Given the fact the government schools are the largest sector serving the
population on the lowest rung of social pyramid, the importance of government
school cannot be negated in the presence of increasing privatization.
Nevertheless the solution lies in improving the miserable condition of public
schools rather than criticizing privatization.

10. Thank You!