Explaining progress towards universal primary education in India

In 2015 there are still large regional differences in terms of progress towards achieving universal primary education (UPE). In this research, political commitment, budget size and policy cost-effectiveness are considered as key factors to explain these differences. Placing these factors at their centre, three theories are formulated which each contain five propositions about expected UPE progress levels. Against the background of India’s large out of school population and interregional differences, the states of Punjab and Bihar are selected as a most-likely and least-likely case based on per capita income and urbanization rates. Next, using a congruence analysis approach the predicted and actual progress levels are compared to test the explanatory power of each theory. As a result, the main theory on budget size is considered the best predictor, as it contains the most propositions with accurate predictions and has a decent mean prediction score. The theory on policy cost-effectiveness performed best considering its overall weighted average, though variance among predictions was high. The political commitment theory consistently underestimated the level of UPE progress, and requires further adjustment. Additionally, giving proper weight to the private costs of education as an indicator for UPE progress was found to be essential for the validity of each of the three theories.