Caste and the Architecture of Schooling in India

In India, education has long been cast as a pathway to social mobility, even as it continues to mirror deeply rooted social hierarchies. As formal education has expanded, caste continues to influence access to educational opportunities, the quality of institutions students attend, and the resources families can mobilise in support of schooling. Tracing how schooling and tuition patterns vary across caste groups is therefore essential to understanding both the persistence of inequality and the possibilities for social mobility in contemporary India. 

This analysis draws on data from the Comprehensive Modular Survey on Education (CMS-E), conducted by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) as part of the 80th Round of the National Sample Survey (April-June 2025). The article first examines caste-based differences in school enrolment across rural and urban areas. It then analyses the distribution of students receiving private tuition by school type, compares schooling and supplementary education expenditures across caste groups, and finally assesses the primary sources of education financing.

CMS-E, like all survey data, classifies respondents in terms of broad administrative categories created for implementing reservations or affirmative action. Thus, households are classified according to whether they belong to the Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Classes (OBC), or the residual, designated as “Others”. This is the non-SC-ST-OBC population, which is a rough proxy for groups conventionally ranked higher in the socio-economic hierarchy, or the so-called “Upper Castes” (UC). It also classifies schools into five types based on its  management. Government schools are fully funded and run by central, state, or local authorities. Government-aided schools are privately managed but supported by public funds for salaries and basic operations. Private unaided (recognised) schools operate independently without government funding but are formally approved under state or central regulations. Unrecognised schools function without official approval and often fall short of Right to Education (RTE) norms on infrastructure and quality. The remaining institutions are grouped under ‘others’.

Government schools anchor rural education, while private schools dominate urban enrollment

Figure 1 shows how students from different caste groups are distributed across school types in rural and urban areas. In rural India, most students study in government schools. This includes nearly four-fifths of ST students (79 percent), 3 in 4 SC students (75.2 percent), and over 6 in 10 OBC students (63.2 percent). In urban areas, reliance on government schools is much lower. Around half of ST students (51.4 percent) and 42.9 percent of SC students attend government schools, while the share drops further for OBC (28.7 percent) and upper-caste students (23.1 percent).

Private school enrolment is higher in urban areas, particularly among OBC and upper-caste students. In contrast, ST and SC students remain more reliant on government schools, with 51.4 percent of ST students and 42.9 percent of SC students in urban areas enrolled in government institutions, compared to 33 percent and 39 percent in private schools, respectively.

Government school students drive rural tuition uptake, but private school students dominate in urban areas

According to Figure 2, in rural areas, most students who receive private tuition are enrolled in government schools across all caste groups. This includes over seven in ten ST students (71.1 percent) and nearly eight in ten SC students (77.9 percent). The share of private school students among tuition recipients is much smaller, at 15.8 percent for ST and 11.7 percent for SC students. Even among upper-caste students, more than half (54.8 percent) of those taking tuition are in government schools, with smaller shares in government-aided (22.5 percent) and private schools (21.9 percent).

In urban areas, the pattern shifts towards private schools. Among students receiving tuition, about half of OBC (50.3 percent) and upper-caste students (50.8 percent) are enrolled in private schools. A similar pattern is seen among ST students, where, as shown in Figure 1, overall enrolment is higher in government schools, but the largest share of those receiving tuition comes from private schools (44.1 percent). Urban SC students, however, constitute a partial exception, with tuition recipients almost 1.7 times more likely to be from government schools (49.7 percent) than from private schools (29.7 percent).

An eight- to ten-fold gap in schooling costs between government and private schools

Figure 3 shows the average annual schooling and tuition expenditures by school type across caste groups. Across all caste groups, government schools record the lowest school-related expenses and private schools the highest. In government schools, average schooling expenditure ranges from ₹2,517 among ST students to ₹3,874 among upper caste students. Private school costs are 8-10 times higher than government schools— about eight times for SC students (₹22,816 vs ₹2,881), around nine times for ST (₹22,697 vs ₹2,517) and OBC students (₹26,346 vs ₹2,965), and nearly ten times for upper caste students (₹37,117 vs ₹3,874).

However, focusing only on school fees understates the true cost of education. Among government-school students, spending on private tuition forms the largest share of total education expenditure across all caste groups. ST students spend ₹6,198 annually on tuition- about 2.5 times their school expenses; SC students spend ₹6,538, more than double their schooling costs (₹2,881); OBC students spend ₹6,320 compared to ₹2,965 on schooling; and upper-caste students spend ₹8,660, over twice their school expenditure of ₹3,874. This indicates that government schooling, while nominally low-cost, requires additional household investment to compensate for gaps in instructional provision, thereby narrowing the affordability advantage of public education. In private schools, by contrast, tuition spending constitutes roughly two-fifths of total schooling expenditure- suggesting that higher school fees do not replace investment in supplementary instruction but accompany it.

Households remain the primary financiers of schooling across castes

Figure 4 shows the share of students by primary education financing source across school types and caste groups. It indicates that, across all caste groups, family contributions constitute the principal source of education funding for more than 96 percent of students. This finding is consistent with the financing structure documented in CEDA’s earlier analysis on who bears the cost of school education in India. Government scholarships play a limited but more visible role in government schools, where around 2.3 percent of ST and 2.4 percent of OBC students report them as their primary source of education financing. Within government-aided schools, SC students report the highest share of government scholarship support (1.2 percent), while in private schools, ST students record the highest share (0.6 percent) among all caste groups. Loan reliance remains minimal overall, but is highest among SC students in private schools (1.7 percent).

Education in India has expanded, but it has not levelled the field. As education continues to be a key route to economic security and social mobility, the ways in which caste continues to mediate institutional access, household investment, and educational experience acquire renewed significance.  These differences suggest that inequality is not simply outside the system, but built into how it functions. Recognising these gaps is essential for designing policies that equalise access to quality schooling and reduce disparities in learning conditions.