South Asia Non-State Actors in Education: Who Chooses? Who Loses? (Summary)

Global Education Monitoring Report
(2022)

Education is both a public and a private good. Governments take on the high cost of delivering education because of its public-good qualities – in other words, the wider benefits to societies and economies. An educated workforce helps develop the economy, while public schools develop and strengthen a sense of national identity, superseding and absorbing traditional education structures managed by local communities and religious institutions.

South Asia is the region with the strongest presence of non-state actors in education. This regional report, which builds on the 2021/2 Global Education Monitoring Report, draws extensively on data collection and expert analysis from collaborations with several institutional and individual partners in the region.

Non-state providers in each country are diverse, with unique characteristics and a varied share of enrolment and modes of operation. In India, private unaided and aided schools enrolled nearly as many students in 2019/20 as the government schools and local bodies.

Also read the background paper for the GEM Report, ‘Regulation of Non-State Actors in School Education in India’ here.

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