Schooling for All: Can We Neglect the Demand?

by V. Santhakumar, Namita Gupta, Rama Murthy Sripada

Does substantial expansion of educational facilities by itself create the required demand for education? Since demand for education depends on many socio-economic, political, and religious factors, is the supply of free schooling alone adequate? Schooling for All demonstrates that there is still a substantial need to create demand for schooling among all levels of society, especially in those socio-economic groups which are yet to see the importance of education.

The volume critically analyses the primary drawbacks of the Indian education system-non-enrolment, dropouts, irregular attendance, and inadequate learning. It establishes the need to strongly encourage parents to recognize the importance of education for their children's future. Arguing that supply-side strategies-free education, midday meals, opening more schools-have not proved effective since the problem of inadequate demand is much larger, the authors delineate the measures that are required to boost the demand for education in India.

256 pages, Hardcover

Published November 29, 2016