Bhorkar, Shalini S;
(2021)
Private Tutoring and Mainstream Education Linkages in
India: A Political Economy Approach.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Global private tutoring (PT) research points to a complex mix of both drivers and outcomes of tutoring that are highly context dependent. In India, students and families perceive PT as a panacea for dealing with mainstream educational deficiencies, leading to its extensive usage. Understanding of the phenomenon, however, is not commensurate with its high participation across the diverse sections of society. This study addresses this void to understand how an uncontrolled and unregulated PT sector is likely to worsen educational quality and exacerbate social inequalities, thus afflicting mainstream education in a potentially negative feedback loop. It explores the processual aspects and practices of PT provision that make receiving PT unequal for students and families. It simultaneously extricates the complex interlinkages between PT and mainstream education against the backdrop of India’s stratified schooling system. This qualitative study employs a political economy approach to understand who benefits, who loses and why, as a result of PT entrenchment. Findings suggest that (i) PT, similar to schooling in India, is heterogenous and hierarchical in both access and provision; (ii) the way educational policies get interpreted and translated to actions give a further boost to PT, while simultaneously weakening and nullifying the objectives of some of these reforms; (iii) transactions and negotiations between PT and mainstream education actors open up several new avenues for educational corruption; and (iv) numerous ideas emanating from social, cultural, economic factors, in addition to educational ones, normalise PT as an integral part of school education. The stronger conceptualisation of the complex interplay and resulting dynamics between key political economy features of PT and the diversity of institutional arrangements provide useful pointers for PT reforms that could mitigate the unequalising outcomes of tutoring. Conceptually, the study advances PT literature positioned within larger educational and social inequalities for countries at various educational development stages.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Private Tutoring and Mainstream Education Linkages in India: A Political Economy Approach |
| Event: | UCL (University College London) |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2021. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Education, Practice and Society |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10139996 |
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