Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T17:42:25.482Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Determinants of Primary Schooling in British India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2009

Latika Chaudhary
Latika Chaudhary*
Affiliation:
Economics Fellow, Department of Economics, Stanford University, 579 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305–6072. E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Using a new historical data set on the availability of schools, I analyze why there was so little primary education in British India, where as late as 1911 there were fewer than three primary schools for every ten villages. The findings show that greater caste and religious diversity contributed to both low and misguided private spending. Indeed more diverse districts had fewer privately managed primary schools and a smaller ratio of primary to secondary schools. Given primary schools were correlated with subsequent literacy, local factors that disrupted primary school provision had important consequences for India's limited achievement in basic education.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 69 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 269 - 302
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alesina, Alberto, Baqir, Reza, and Easterly, William. “Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 114, no. 4 (1999): 1243–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asaoka, Hiromi. “Investing in Education in India: Inferences from an Analysis of the Rates of Return to Education across Indian States.” Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 2006.Google Scholar
Banerjee, Abhijit, and Somanathan, Rohini. “The Political Economy of Public Goods: Some Evidence from India.” Journal of Development Economics 82, no. 2 (2007): 287–314.Google Scholar
Basu, Aparna. The Growth of Education and Political Development in India, 1898–1920. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1974.Google Scholar
Basu, Aparna. Essays in the History of Indian Education. New Delhi: Concept, 1982.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary S.Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1964.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Jess, and Spiegel, Mark M.. “The Role of Human Capital in Economic Development: Evidence from Aggregate Cross-Country Data.” Journal of Monetary Economics 34, no. 2 (1994): 143–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blaug, Mark, Layard, P. R. G., and Woodhall, Maureen. The Causes of Graduate Unemployment in India. London: Allen Lane, 1969.Google Scholar
Chand, Gyan. Local Finance in India. Allahabad: Kitabistan, 1947.Google Scholar
Chaudhary, Latika. “Essays on Education and Social Divisions in Colonial India.” Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2006.Google Scholar
Chaudhuri, S. B.History of the Gazetteers of India. New Delhi: Ministry of Education, Government of India, 1964.Google Scholar
Cohn, Bernard S. “The Census, Social Structure, and Objectification in South Asia.” In an Anthropologist among the Historians and other Essays. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Davis, Lance E., and Huttenback, Robert A.. Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire: The Political Economy of British Imperialism, 1860–1912. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Dirks, Nicholas. Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
DrȲze, Jean, and Sen, Amartya. India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Easterlin, Richard. “Why Isn't the Whole World Developed?” This Journal 41, no. 1 (1981): 1–19.Google Scholar
Ghosh, Suresh C.The History of Education in Modern India, 1757–1998. New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2000.Google Scholar
Ghurye, G. S.Caste, Class, and Occupation. Bombay: Bhatkal Publishers, 1961.Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia, and Katz, Lawrence. “Human Capital and Social Capital: The Rise of Secondary Schooling in America, 1910 to 1940.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 29, no. 4 (1999): 683–723.Google Scholar
Gounden, A. M. Nalla. “Investment in Education in India.” Journal of Human Resources 2, no. 3 (1967): 347–58.Google Scholar
Heyneman, Stephen P. “Investment in Indian Education: Uneconomic?” World Development 8, no. 2 (1980): 145–63.Google Scholar
House of Commons, . “Despatch to Government of India on General Education in India.” Sessional Papers, 1854, paper 393, vol. XLVII, p. 155.Google Scholar
House of Commons, . “Progress of Education in India, 1892–1897 (Third Quinquennial Review).” Sessional Papers, 1899, paper C.9190, vol. LXV, p. 501.Google Scholar
House of Commons, . “Review of Progress of Education in India, 1897/98 to 1901/02. Fourth Quinquennial Review (East India: Education).” Sessional Papers, 1904, paper Cd. 2181, 2182, vol. LXV, p. 1.Google Scholar
House of Commons, . “Progress of Education in India, 1902–1907. Fifth Quinquennial Review (East India: Education).” Sessional Papers, 1909, paper Cd. 4635, 4636, vol. LXIII, p. 1.Google Scholar
House of Commons, . “Progress of Education in India, 1907–1912. Sixth Quinquennial Review (East India: Education).” Sessional Papers, 1914, paper Cd. 7485, 7486, vol. LXII, p. 1.Google Scholar
House of Commons, . “Seventh Quinquennial Review, 1912–1917 (East India: Education).” Sessional Papers, 1919, paper Cmd. 256, 257, vol. XXVIII, p. 1.Google Scholar
India. Report of the Indian Education Commission appointed by the resolution of the Government of India dated 3rd February 1882. Calcutta, 1883.Google Scholar
India. Census of India, 1901. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India, 1903.Google Scholar
India. Census of India, 1911. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India, 1913.Google Scholar
India. India, district and provincial gazetteers. Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation, 1979.Google Scholar
Lindert, Peter. Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth since the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Miguel, Edward, and Gugerty, Mary K.. “Ethnic Diversity, Social Sanctions, and Public Goods in Kenya.” Journal of Public Economics 89, no. 11 (2005): 2325–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mincer, Jacob. Schooling, Experience, and Earnings. New York: Columbia University Press, 1974.Google Scholar
Mukhopadhyay, Gopal. Mass Education in Bengal (1882–1914). Calcutta: National Publishers, 1984.Google Scholar
Nurullah, Syed, and Naik, J. P.. A History of Education in India (During the British Period). London: Macmillan, 1951.Google Scholar
Psacharopoulos, George. Returns to Education: An International Comparison. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1973.Google Scholar
Richey, James A.Progress of education in India, 1917–1922. Calcutta: Superintendent of Government Press, 1924.Google Scholar
Schultz, Theodore W. “Reflections on Investment in Man.” Journal of Political Economy 70, no. 5 (1962): 1–8.Google Scholar
Schultz, Theodore W.Investment in Human Capital. New York: Free Press and Macmillan, 1971.Google Scholar
Schultz, Theodore W.Transforming Traditional Agriculture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Srinivas, M. N.Village, Caste, Gender, and Method: Essays in Indian Social Anthropology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Vigdor, Jacob. “Community Composition and Collective Action: Analyzing Initial Mail Responses to the 2000 Census.” Review of Economics and Statistics 86, no. 1 (2004): 303–12.Google Scholar
Whitehead, Clive. “The Historiography of British Imperial Education Policy, Part 1: India.” History of Education 34, no. 3 (2005): 315–29.Google Scholar