Geography and caste shape access to private coaching in India
Data from India's 2025 Comprehensive Modular Survey reveals that private coaching is more prevalent in poorer states, suggesting it acts as a substitute for inadequate school systems rather than a luxury for the wealthy. The study also highlights disparities in access based on social categories.
Why it matters
It challenges the assumption that private tutoring is a luxury good and provides insight into systemic educational inequality in India.
27% of India’s schoolchildren are paying for lessons outside school. The Hindu reported in September that children enrolled in private coaching are concentrated in the east of the country. Tripura is the highest at 79%, West Bengal comes second at 75%.
(Sign up for THEdge , The Hindu’s weekly education newsletter.)
What nobody has asked is why. A common reasoning is that tuition is a luxury, and students from richer families can afford it. Therefore, it’s more likely that students from richer States could afford it easily. Using unit-level data from the Comprehensive Modular Survey on Education 2025, a nationally representative survey of 52,085 households conducted by the National Statistics Office, we tested this claim. The data show that this claim is wrong and also reveal a complicated picture of who India’s coaching economy actually serves.
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in