CRITICAL REVIEW

Impact of Private Tutoring on Learning Levels: Evidence

from India

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 INTRODUCTION

In the articles, the authors, talk about the impact of private tutoring in a developing country like
India. In India, a huge proportion of children go for private tutoring and a substantial amount is
spent on the same, but not much is known about the learning outcome. Education is necessary
for efficient human capital to enhance the economic growth. Basic education has become a
necessity in developing countries. Earlier, with the existence of vertical integration of firms,
every individual was expected to be well versed in their area, and the efficiency of work was
often overseen. But, with the rising competition and opening up of economies, there is a
substantial demand for quality workforce for each level of the managerial hierarchy.

CRITICAL REVIEW

In the recent years, government has made education for all boys and girls upto primary education
compulsory. School based education has been given much importance today. But in the process,
the role of additional inputs provided by households, such as private tutoring, has remained
neglected. The objective of the first paper, Private Schooling in India by Geeta Kingdon
(1996) is to understand why, despite substantial household expenditure on private tutoring in
many developing countries, not much is known about their effects on learning outcomes. Private
tutoring has been defined as fee-based tutoring that provides supplementary instruction in
subjects that they study in the mainstream education system. A major share of the income in
many countries is contributed towards private tutoring. For instance, a study shows that, In
Korea, households spent 2.8% of GDP on private tutoring in 2006, equivalent to 80% of
government expenditure on public education for primary and secondary schooling. In Turkey, the
aggregate expenditure on private tutoring is 1.44% of GDP, and is comparable to total public
sector educational spending. According to the paper, Elementary education in India has
transformed dramatically in the last decade or so. The governments in both the central and the
state has increased the allocation of funds on elementary education more than two fold. Increased
allocation of funds has in turn led to higher expenditure, which in turn has led to the increased
access to schools. Various innovative schemes have been introduced to encourage education at
the elementary level. The proportion of students not going to a school has plummeted to less than
4% in both the rural and the urban areas. In the year 2010, the government passed the right to
education bill, which declared the elementary education as a fundamental right (i.e. every child
between the age of 6-14, has to attend school and in age-appropriate classes). But despite this,
the learning levels of students are alarmingly low. Most studies have focused on issues
surrounding the public and private provision of school based education but the role or impact of
private tuitions remain unexplored.

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The second paper, An Empirical View on Private Tutoring on School Mathematics by
Gunendra Das and Ranjan Das (2010) aims at exploring a little more the phenomenon of
private tutoring in mathematics, and the reasons for taking private tuition, the actual organization
of tutorial classes and the knowledge and skills acquired during the private tuition sessions.
There is a changing pattern in private tutoring in India Earlier, a teacher used to make some
money by teaching a gathering of 10 to 15 students in a makeshift classroom in his house after
school. He solicited students through word of mouth. (This home-based private tutoring is
referred to as “private tuitions.”) This form of tutoring essentially provided remedial classes for
academically weak students. Moreover, private tutoring appears to cause some problems
including a weakening of students’ self-directed learning capabilities, students’ low engagement
in classroom teaching, and undue pressures on parents as well as students. In India, though the
numbers are not known, a large proportion of people go for private tuitions in the secondary and
post-secondary levels. But this phenomenon is not restricted to children of higher grades. In the
rural areas, approximately 1/5th of the students in the primary levels i.e. from grade one to eight
attend private tuitions. Although, there is a substantial variation among states in terms of children
who attend private tuitions. Almost three-fourth of children at elementary level in rural West
Bengal and Tripura, and close to half of children in rural Bihar and Odisha attend private
tuitions. Children attending tuition spend, on an average, about nine hours in tuitions per week,
which is equivalent to one and a half school day. They pay on average, Rs. 170 per month,
amounting to slightly above Rs. 2000 per annum to attend these tuitions. But the question is why
might these children want to for private tuitions. The reason being aplenty, have been analyzed.
Firstly, the parents might feel that they are not in a position to guide their children in their
studies. An academically weak child may fall behind of what is being taught in class, hence need
more attention. These factors sought of explain why a significant fraction of students attend
tuitions at the preliminary level.

The third paper, The Impact of Private Tuitions on Learning Levels by Amit Dongre and
Vibhu Tewary (2015), examines the evidence on the nature, size and growth of the fee-charging
private tuitions in India, Taking special reference to UP. The main challenge in estimating such
an effect is that the decision to send the child for private tutoring is endogenous. This paper
utilizes a household survey conducted in rural India. In this research, Fixed Effect estimation
method has been employed to control between the heterogeneity in the clusters of data. The
cluster of data signifies, households, schools or villages which have a heterogeneous effect on
the outcome of interest. This strategy is employed because of the pre-determined number of
villages and the predetermined number of households from each village. The study utilizes a
large survey conducted in the rural areas, and employs fixed estimation to control for the effects
of unobservable variables. Differences among the observable dimensions can be controlled but
the differences among the unobservable dimensions cannot be controlled such as ability,
motivation, parental concern for education etc. The study shows a positive effect on the students

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at the elementary level (grades one to eight). The FE estimation indicates 0.14 standard deviation
effect of private tutoring on learning outcomes. In the study, it is observed that amongst the
students who enrolled for private tuitions, the students from government schools found the
private tuitions more effective than those students from the private schools. The private tuitions
benefitted those students who are economically disadvantages and whose parents are uneducated.
It finds a positive and significant effect of private tutoring on learning outcomes for students in
Classes 1 to 8. Higher the age of the student, higher the standard in which the student is studying.
Higher is the affluence of the household, higher is learning level. Being in a government school
is associated with lower learning levels. States like Bihar, west Bengal and Orissa has more
people going for private tuitions. And the effect of private tuitions on learning outcomes is higher
in these states compared to the rest of the country. It shows that the effect of tuitions varies as per
the school type, the condition of the building of the house, the gender of the child and the
mother’s and father’s schooling. On the basis of the estimation, we can conclude that those
students who attend government schools, those who stay in non-pucca households, and those
whose parents have relatively less years of schooling have lower learning outcomes.
Interestingly, coefficients on interaction terms indicate that these are the students who benefit
more from private tuitions, with exception of female students. Interestingly, the proportion of
households with television sets is higher than the proportion of households with toilets in the
house. Hardly 10% of the households get a newspaper daily. Most of the villages have electricity
connections, and close to three-fourths of the villages have pucca roads leading to the village, a
public distribution system (PDS) shop and 43% of the villages have private schools. Thus,
interaction effects clearly suggest that private tuitions benefit more to those who have lower
learning levels, and thus they are actually leveling the playing field.

CONCLUSION

Private tutoring has become very popular, especially in developing countries. The unprecedented
growth in this sector is posing challenged on the traditional formal system of education. Students
taking up private tuitions are neglecting to do school work. And very often students fail to pay
attention while classes happening in school because they become complacent with the realization
that tuitions are always there to make up for the lost time. The policy makers should take up this
issue as it is becoming a huge threat to the formal education system in India. Concession
should be given to those students who are lagging behind and for those students who find it
difficult to grasp concepts easily. With the emergence of mass private tutoring, distinction
between formal and informal learning would get blurred. Several measures could be taken to
cope with the growing incidence of private tutoring. These could include making teachers in the
formal school system more accountable and the schools qualitatively more competitive;
reviewing the selection criteria for entry to higher education institutions; and, finally, supporting
students from poor households and in rural areas so that they are better prepared for entry to
reputed and highly competitive higher education institutions.

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 REFERENCES

1. Kingdon, G.G. (1996). Private Schooling in India: Size, Nature, and Equity-
Effects. Economic and Political Weekly, 31(51), 3306-3314. Retrieved
from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4404908
2. Das, G.C & Das, R. (2013, May) An Empirical view on Private Tutoring in
School Mathematics of Kamrup District. International Journal for Scientific and
Research Publications. Vol. 3, Issue No. 5. http://www.ijsrp.org/research-paper-
0513/ijsrp-p1777.pdf
3. Dongre, A & Tewary, V. (2015, 10 Oct). Impact of private tuitions on learning
levels. Economics and Political weekly. Vol. 50, Issue No. 41.
http://www.epw.in/journal/2015/41/special-articles/impact-private-tutoring-
learning-levels.html

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