Properties and values are not the only things that one inherits from parents, but education too. Children with parents who are well educated have better opportunities of becoming well educated themselves. This finding was made in the study conducted by Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA).

Children of parents with who are well educated have high probabilities for higher education

The study observes that the probability of a student increases notably if the parents of the student have undergone graduate education. The working paper was prepared by Professor Rakesh Basant and Gitanjali Sen from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. The paper is titled as “Parental Education as a Criterion for Affirmative Action in Higher Education: A Preliminary Analysis”.

Parental Education as a Criterion for Affirmative Action in Higher Education: A Preliminary Analysis

The paper analyzed the data collected by the National Sample Survey organization (NSSO) at three different points. It analyzed the data to determine the effect of socio-religious relation and parental education on participation in higher education. The analysis was made by controlling various factors such as individual, household and location factors.

The significance of the paper

The conclusion of all the stock models demonstrates that parent’s education is an important factor that influences the child’s participation in higher education. The marginal influence of parents’ education is highly positive and important. The influence of parent’s education increases significantly as it moves from illiteracy to secondary, higher secondary to graduate education, with graduate education witnessing a huge impact.

The paper explains the percentage of students who are either graduates or are currently pursuing higher education by the educational qualifications of their parents. During the academic year 2009-2010, only less than 2 per cent children with parents who are illiterate joined different courses in higher education, but it was 15 per cent in the case of parents with a graduate degree. Another important development that was observed is that, participation in higher education of children has increased for all categories of parental education during 1999 to 2010. In the case of illiterate parents, the percentage students pursuing higher education have increased from .4 per cent in 1999-2000 to 1.9 per cent in 2009-2010.

The variables and categories considered for the study

The paper analyze three variables based on four categories such as all parents who have never been to any school (illiterate parents), parents who have been to school and completed secondary education or below that level (secondary or below), parents who have been to school and finished their higher secondary education (higher secondary education) and parents who have been to college and completed their graduation or anything above it (completed graduate).

The statistics from the paper

In the category of percentage of who have been to college and completed their graduate education the following observations were made in the paper:

The percentage increased from .6 per cent to 1.2 from 1999 to 2010 in the case of children of illiterate parents.

The percentage increased from 3.1 per cent to 3.7 per cent during 1999-2010 in the case of children of parents with secondary education or below.

In the case of children of parents with higher secondary education, the percentage increased from 7.3 in 1999 to 9.6 in 2010.

The percentage increased from 12.5 per cent to 14 per cent during the period in the case of children of parent with graduate education and above.

In the case of children who are currently enrolled in graduate level education and above the following observations were made:

The percentage of children of parents who are illiterate increased from .4 per cent in 1999 to 1.9 per cent in 2010.

The percentage of children of parents with secondary education and below increased from 2.2 per cent in 1999 to 4.6 per cent in 2010

In the case of children of parents with higher secondary education, the percentage increased from 6.5 per cent to 12.1 per cent

In the case of children of parents with graduate education and above, the percentage increased from 10.6 per cent to 15.1 per cent.

The influence of Socio-religious aspects in education

The education level of parents varies with socio-religious aspects. During the academic year 2009-10, Children belonging to Scheduled Tribe had the highest percentage of illiterate parents with 49 per cent of them being illiterate. In the case of Muslims, the children with illiterate parents amounted to 46 per cent followed by Hindu Scheduled Cast children with 45 per cent with illiterate parents. In the case of children belonging to Hindu Upper caste, only 17 per cent of the children’s had parent who were illiterate.

The decrease in number of illiterate parents

During the period 1999 to 2000, the number of illiterate parents has decreased. In the case of higher education, Hindu upper class parents formed the majority in completing higher education.

The participation of women in higher education

An interesting observation made was that the probability of women participating in higher education is much more than that of men. Girls seem to have better chance of participating in higher education than boys.

Quality of education

Issues regarding the quality of education are still not addressed as parents with better quality education may influence the choice of the children more effectively. Children with parents who are non literate can form the most backward category followed by children with parents with secondary or less education and those with higher secondary education. Children with parents who undergone graduate level education does not come under the purview of affirmative action.

The importance of prediction made in the paper

The predictions made in the paper are important which means that the even after some of the factors are controlled, the education of parents play a significant role in Higher Education participation. The Hindi Upper Class is found to have high probability in attaining higher education with the lowest of Muslims.

Arguments might rise stating that there is no constitutional validity for affirmative action based on parental education, but this can be considered as an attempt to bring out the truth.