Determinants of Student Attendance in Elementary Education in India

Abstract

Elementary education is a vital tool for building up a better society and helps in bringing prosperity in a country as a whole. Policymakers have viewed the provision of free and compulsory elementary education for all children as a critical prerequisite for achieving equality and social justice in the society. The Government of India has been executing several initiatives to ensure that schooling is indeed accessible to all children over the years. In view of this, it is observed that the number of children at the elementary level had been increased to almost 60 million, with an annual growth rate of 1.5% from 1991–1992 to 2015–2016 (MHRD) (GOI, 2018). It has been observed that education infrastructure has been developed extensively in recent years to extend access to elementary education for all sections of the society. All responsible governments including central and state governments, and stakeholders (private providers, civil society organisations and communities) have been making significant efforts for establishment of schools and that have resulted in considerable improvement in the availability of schools imparting elementary education across the country. The present study attempts to examine the probability of inclusion of rural and urban students in education process by employing probit models as a statistical tool to investigate the factors that affect their participation in elementary education.