Economics of education: inequality in primary education in districts of Andhra Pradesh

Each person's education is an investment in her human capital which allows her to contribute to her society in a productive way. Equal access to education is a basic human right. But gaps in education among various groups are staggering.

This paper analyses the factors behind inter-district educational inequality in the State of Andhra Pradesh. Empirical analysis on the accessibility and attainment of primary and upper primary education in the districts of Andhra Pradesh is done using principal component analysis and composite parameter ranking. The method of Principal Component Analysis has been applied separately for each of the four parameters selected for the study. This method has helped to reduce sub-parameters of education to selected Components summarizing the data without any loss of information. These extracted Principal Components then, have been used to build up index for each parameter separately. The educational development index will be worked out.