Do public funds increase days of instruction in primary schools?: A study of 3 districts in India

Abstract

This article investigates the role of public funds in ensuring that primary schools in India have at least a certain minimum number of instructional days. Using data on primary schools from three districts, we first document that the distribution of instructional days may reasonably be thought of as a binary variable where a school is either functional (i.e., with more than 201 instructional days) or is not (i.e., has less than 201 instructional days). Secondly, we show that receiving any public funds is important for schools to be functional; however, the marginal effect of doses of public funding diminishes with larger amounts of funding. Finally, monitoring schools in terms of the number of academic visits, visits by BRC and CRC coordinators as well as the presence of head teachers are important in ensuring that primary schools are functional in the sense that we have defined. These findings seem to point to important ways to improve the quality of primary schooling in India.