Elementary Education, Poverty and Gender Differentials in North-East India : Some Issues

This paper studies the economics of education and gender differentials.The issue of Universalisation of Elementary education among the north-eastern states of India using household level data from the 1993-94 NSS surveys is examined, particularly in respect of the status of school enrollment of children in the age group of 5-14 years among these states and relationship between poverty and non-enrollment in the schools. The issue of gender bias dealt in-depth. We find that poverty has no effect on school enrollment and no evidence of gender bias. The traditional hypotheses about lack of schooling and lower school enrollment among the socially deprived groups, STs and SCs is not supported by the data for these states