Primary Education in India: An Analysis of Comparative Performance of Districts

Abstract

An analysis of the outcome of primary education has considerable significance from the perspective of economic growth, development and also from the broader concept of human development. The outcome of primary education can be measured in terms of different indicators like enrolment, retention and learning. This paper analyses comparative performance in primary education of 161 districts across six selected states of India using a comprehensive measure of outcome of primary education called educational outcome index. This index is based on 10 indicators of educational outcome, including four indicators of learning achievement of students. The method of principal component analysis is used in developing the index, which is subsequently used for classifying the districts into three groups of performance: good, average and poor. The classification shows that districts within each state are distributed across these groups of performance, suggesting significant intra-state variations in performance of primary education in India.