Impact of Private Tutoring on Learning Levels: Evidence from India

Abstract

Despite widespread and substantial private expenditure on private tutoring outside the formal school system in many developing countries, not much is known about their effects on learning outcomes. The main challenge in estimating such an effect is that the decision to send the child for private tutoring is correlated with unobserved variables which are also correlated with learning outcomes.

This paper utilizes a large household survey conducted in rural India, and employs Fixed Effect (FE) estimation to control for the effect of unobserved variables. We find positive and significant effect of private tutoring on learning outcomes for students at elementary level (grades 1-8). This effect is equivalent to an additional year of schooling or being in a private school instead of a government school. The effect is stronger for the students enrolled in government schools compared to the students enrolled in private schools, for children from economically disadvantaged background, and for children whose parents are relatively less educated.

These are, to our knowledge, the first estimates of impact of private tutoring on learning outcomes in the Indian context.

Keywords: Private tutoring, India

JEL Classification: I20, I21