Effect of District Caste Fragmentation on School Dropout

The diverse population of India has witnessed low provision of public schools in fragmented districts with quality degrading to an alarming level especially concerning public schools and health facilities. Moreover, the quality of public schools in these fragmented districts is reported to be poor. From that, this paper hypothesizes the caste fragmentation of the district captured by the standard fragmentation index positively influences the school dropout post- the Upper Primary level. With not much difference across the reserved and unreserved groups of the population, the dropout stemming from public schools is significantly affected by the fragmentation index. Further, it shows that dropouts in these fragmented districts arise from students having to travel long distances to switch schools with better school quality