Analysis of Household Expenditure on Supplementary Private Tutoring in Cambodia
Ryuto Minami

Kobe University

Abstract

Secondary education plays an important role in economic development by bridging primary education, the labor market, and higher education. In Cambodia, the expansion of universal primary education is remarkable, but access to and quality of secondary education is poor. In developing countries like Cambodia, where government spending on education is inadequate, household spending on education is important. In Cambodia, in particular, private supplementary education is provided informally outside of schools. This leads to disparities in learning opportunities and learning outcomes, especially for students from poor families who cannot afford to pay. Hence, this study aims to examine what factors influence household spending on private tutoring, especially in Cambodia, where private tutoring is part of secondary education.
As a methodology, this study utilizes national representative household survey dataset, namely Cambodia Socio-Economic Survey (CSES). We then use the CSES three-year data set (2009, 2014, and 2019) for our analysis. Given the the left-censored distribution of household expenditures to private tutoring, this study applies the Censored Least Absolute Deviations (CLAD) as econometric model.
The results of this study show that households spend more on private tutoring to female students than to male students. In addition, students from ethnic minority backgrounds receive a smaller amount of expenditure in private tutoring than majority students. Turning to household characteristics, our analysis reveals that household income and parental education are important predictors of household spending on private tutoring. Furthermore, the dummy variable representing the year of the data set is statistically significant, indicating that household spending on private tutoring has increased over the years. This study reveal which households spend less on private tutoring and suggest which students from which households are academically disadvantaged in Cambodia.

Keywords: Secondary Education, Cambodia, Shadow Education

Topic: Development economics