Rural Research

Method

RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Submitted to: Prof. Sony Pellissery

Submitted By: Group ‘DATA’

Title: Factors influencing rural families in sending their wards to private
schools: a study in Kamplapore village in Gujarat.

Abstract:

Our research proposal intends to examine the factors which decide a rural
household’s decision to send their child to a private run school .The research
design is cross section study. Interview with key informants will be
conducted followed by survey with the households. . The questionnaire
designed tries to extract the underlying factors viz. economic, social (caste
and religion), gender consideration etc.

Introduction:

We are trying to explore the factors that influence a rural household to send
their child to a private school.

The directive principle of the state policies advises the Indian state to ensure
universal school education. Since the conception of the Indian state there
have been various official committees and policy pronouncements in this
regard. The Indian government has lately made right to education (for
children aged from 6 to 14 years) a fundamental right. There is a growing
tendency among policy-makers to advocate liberalization of education and to
transfer the responsibility of imparting education to private hands through
various measures. The plan to distribute education vouchers is the latest in a
series of plans advised by the pro-liberalization lobby. In the last budgets the
allocation for expenditure towards education was 6% of the total
expenditure. Compared to the other major countries of the world (excluding
Cuba), this budget allocation is quite robust. A major contention is, the funds
allocated for the purpose of education of children in government schools are
not being fully utilized for the purpose they are actually meant for. The
quality of education provided in government schools is under serious
scanner. This situation has resulted in mushrooming of private schools in
rural areas. Rural families cutting across economic and social conditions are
increasingly sending their wards to private schools. The reasons generally
revolve around lack of quality education provided in government schools. We
in our exploratory research will endeavor to probe factors behind this trend
and will try to establish some major factors contributing to this phenomenon.
The government policy making bodies require a critical understanding of
factors affecting people who send their children to private schools in rural
areas. It will help the policy makers to make concerted intervention to
improve the quality of education in government schools, if required. The
class factor, caste factor, social pressures and career orientations involved
and how they are related to the final decision making of the household in this
regard shall be studied in this research.

We shall study families of private school going students of Kamplapore

village, Mandvi taluka of Surat district. The private schools under our study
will only be schools owned and managed by private owner and not
government aided schools or any school providing susidised education in lieu
of government grants.

Literature Review

With the limited knowledge and understanding over the subject we tried to
find the previous work done on the subject. In the most of the cases we
found the literature arguing in favor or against the private school system.
Two streams of thought were clearly visible. One argues that it is the state’s
responsibility to provide universal quality education. Another is in the favor
of privatization of the sector if the state has failed to provide the same.

It is insularity that makes them fit places for the incompetent school master.
Indeed, the better a teacher is rated by the bureaucracy; the greater is his or
her chances of being posted in an urban or semi -urban center (Krishna
Kumar, 1982)

One area that has received increasing academic and public attention is that
of private school vouchers with proponents arguing that the competitive
pressure of voucher programs would cause improvements

In the efficiency of the public school system while at the same time
addressing equity concerns if vouchers can be targeted to low income
households or low income school districts.(Thomas J. Nechyba ,2000)

Even an allocation of 6% of the GDP to the education budget would not be

sufficient to fund universal school education until very distant future if the
government school system is used as the only instrument. The only way to
meet the right to education obligation is to rely on low cost private schools
as a significant instrument of government education policy. On the contrary,
the proposed RTE bill introduces provisions that would oppose low cost
private schools. Therefore, the legislation of RTE needs to be modified and
framed with specific provisions for private public partnership.(Pankaj S. Jain,
Ravindra H. Dholakia, 2009)

Public-Private Partnership in school education is projected as a strategy to

distribute the ownership of institutions, rather than tasks within institutions,
between private entrepreneurs and NGOS on the one hand, and the
government or state on the other. While the rationale for PPP is inefficiency
of the government, the means offered to overcome it actually promise no
relief or improvement. PPP is not an idea, but rather an ideology which
promotes privatization as a means of reducing the government’s
responsibility to increase the number of schools. (Krishna Kumar 2008)

Method

Research design

The research will broadly be of cross-sectional design, with survey and in-
depth interview as data collection tools. The in-depth interview with the key
informants shall help in forming a preliminary structure on which we will
base our survey. The survey will aim at collecting quantitative data using
detailed questionnaire, responses to which shall be collected on the Likert
Response Scale (1.Strongly Agree 2.Agree 3.Neither agree nor disagree
4.Disagree 5.Strongly Disagree). We shall subject the collected responses of
the survey to Factor Analysis to see if there is an inter-relationship between
the factors under study. And, if so found, we shall try to bring these factors
under broader headings to interpret the data.

Sample Selection

This study will be conducted in Kamplapore village of Mandvi Taluka in

Surat district of Gujarat to assess the factors influencing the rural families to
send their wards to private schools. Our study will focus on the determinants
of school choice of the private school, in this village. The sample for our
study will include all the rural families of this village who are sending their
wards to the private schools. Since our study will focus on the private school,
we will not include families sending their children to government schools.
These families shall be identified by studying the enrolment of children in the
village’s private school. For the in-depth interview, the key informants will
include school teachers (both private and government), sarpanch,
government officials, and NGO workers etc. to get qualitative understanding
of the factors which are influencing private school enrolment with the help of
narrative data.

Data Collection

Data was collected using two methods i.e. interview and survey.

Interview: Informal conversational interview will be conducted whereby key

informants in the village will be interviewed to get the qualitative
information. The respondents include village representatives like panchayat
members, private school teacher, government school teachers, health
workers, migrants etc. These people will be asked open ended questions
regarding educational scenario of the village in general and private schools
in particular. The questions posed aim to bring out the in depth information
regarding the evolution of private schools and the various factors
contributing to the same. These factors will help us to focus our research on
the quantitative aspect.

Survey: Data were collected using household survey. Here we will prepare
a questionnaire consisting of questions related with factors responsible for
rural households sending their children to private schools. The instrument
collected background information and data on the following topics;
preferences for private schools and relative importance of private schools
over government schools and its influence on the decision making of
respondents to choose private schools for their wards.

Questionnaire

The following questions form part of questionnaire.

1. I send my child to private school because everybody who can afford sends
their child to a private school.

2. It is a matter of social status for me that my child goes to a private school.

3. I want my child to go to an English Medium school.

4. I prefer private school because they maintain greater discipline than a

govt. run school.
5. The quality of teaching is good at private schools.

6. I do not want my child to mingle with lower caste boys/girls who largely
constitute the school population.

7. Private schools are regular in their session whereas govt. schools are
closed frequently.

8. I can’t send my daughter to a government school because even basic

hygiene facilities are not available at the school.

9. My child will be able to get higher education if I send her/him to a private

school.

10. I do not want my child to eat food under mid-day meal scheme with
lower caste children.

11. I can see that those who attend private schools have better academic
record than those attend Government Schools.

12. Teachers of a private school are more knowledgeable than govt. school
teachers.

13. My child will also be able to recite English poems/rhymes.

14. Teachers of a private school are younger when compared to govt.

schools so they work hard to teach.

15. I can afford the fee that these schools charge.

16. I see that the private school going children are much disciplined.

17. Even teachers of a government run school send her/his child to a private
school.

18. I want my child to get a government job. Private schools concentrate on

English and Mathematical skills which will help him to
get a job.

19. My child wanted to go to the private schools because most of his/her

friends go there.

20. People of all castes mix together in government school, I want my child
to observe caste purity.

21. My child is a boy and he needs career oriented education.

22. The private school has better laboratory facilities.

23. Government school teachers are busy in non-teaching activities like

election duty, conducting survey etc.

Validity

The factors which influence the school choice are highly subjective. The
perception of the parents influences these decisions. These factors are also
influenced by the socio-cultural and economic conditions of the area.
Therefore it is difficult to generalize the findings to a larger scale. Thus, in
this respect, there is a considerable threat to external validity. Having said
this, there must be a few factors which would be omnipresent and are more
or less influencing such decisions irrespective of the area.

The research might suffer from threat to internal validity also. The research
bases itself on data collected from survey and unstructured interview.
Hence, the subjectivity of the observer can not be discounted. There could
also be an error in the articulation of question.

Quantitative Analysis

We will analyze the data that has been collected by factor-analysis. Factor
Analysis examines the interrelationships among a large number of variables
and then provides underlying construct of highly correlated variables. It
helps in reducing the dimensionality of data by grouping variables referred
as factors. In the present research, the factors that have been focused at in
the questionnaire can then be reduced and grouped into broader
classifications. We will construct a correlation matrix, and decompose it into
two factor matrices. One of the matrices shall be the matrix of Eigen vectors
and another matrix of Eigen values.

Budget

Base salary, travelling at actuals and Daily Allowance (including food

allowance) accommodation at actual for two people/5 days. The whole
research can be completed at a minimal budget of around Rs.30,000/-.
Ethical Issues

We will ensure voluntary participation of the respondents for the interview by

verbal or written consent. The objective of the research study will be clearly
stated to the respondents ( whenever eliciting personal information as a
response), also they will be informed about it’s financing, and the intended
use of the research .While making notes, they will be informed about to
whom the data is being communicated to. The respondents will be informed
the degree to which they can access the transcript for any changes , if they
want, and till what time they will be consulted before the publication. The
research will be carried out with full integrity especially when collecting data
from the lower sections of the society, to ward off any exploitation. Feedback
forms will be given to the respondents to write their opinion regarding the
modus operandi of the research.

During the course of our research, some findings can provide sensitive
information about the respondents which may harm them if divulged. These
may include gender, religion, caste sensitive information. Thus identity of the
respondents will be protected. No names will be published. While sharing the
research (if it happens in future) the respondents will remain anonymous.

Implications

We hope that our research will help to understand the concerns and
aspirations of the rural people as far as the education of their children is
concerned. On the policy intervention level this research can prove to be
useful to policy formulators in making more informed interventions in the
education sector. This is all the more crucial with the passage of the RTE
(right to education Act 2008), when the insufficiency of government schools
in providing universal education is quite evident. This research will also help
bring forward the extent of gender, caste and religious discrimination still
present in our society, and if these factors still influence parents when they
decide about their ward’s educational future. This research also aims to bring
forward the magnitude of career consciousness in rural households. It also
aims at bringing forward the prerequisites for an ideal education framework
in changing times so as to meet people’s changing aspirations.

References
Dholakia H Ravindra & Jain S. Pankaj (2000) Economic and Political Weekly,
June 2009 Volume 44

Kumar Krishna (July 1982), Seminar, Rural School July 1982 Issue 275 (Pp14-
17)

Kumar Krishna (Jan 2008), Economic and Political Weekly, (Pp 8-11)

Nechyba J. Thomas(March 2000),American Economic Review, Volume 90

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