short note on compulsory education

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• Compulsory Education Laws: 50-State Survey

Getting an education not only boosts individual earning potential but also helps a person contribute to our society. To this end, each state (and the District of Columbia) has enacted a compulsory education law. These laws generally require children in certain age ranges to attend school. While the age ranges vary by state, the lower limit is usually between five and seven years old, and the upper limit is usually between 16 and 18.

Parents should understand the obligations that these laws impose, as well as the nuances that may allow some flexibility in educating their children. Click on a state below to find out more about the compulsory education law in that state, including the age range, the applicable statute, the core requirement, and some of the notable nuances. If you need more specific and comprehensive guidance, you can consult an education lawyer about your situation.

• Connecticut
• Massachusetts
• Mississippi
• New Hampshire
• North Carolina
• North Dakota
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• South Carolina
• South Dakota
• Washington, D.C.
• West Virginia

Alabama Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children between the ages of 6 and 17.

Alabama Code Section 16-28-3 provides that a child between the ages of 6 and 17 must attend a public school, private school, or church school, or be instructed by a private tutor, for the entire length of the school term in every scholastic year. A child attending a church school may be exempt from these requirements before turning 16. A parent can opt out of enrolling their child in school when they are 6 years old by notifying the local school board in writing that the child will not be enrolled until they are 7.

Certain children may not be required to attend school or be instructed by a private tutor, such as:

• Children whose physical or mental condition prevents their attendance at school or makes it inadvisable
• Children who have completed the course of study of the public schools of the state through high school
• Children who would be compelled to walk over 2 miles to attend a public school
• Children who are legally and regularly employed under the provisions of the law related to child labor and hold permits to work

To be exempt from the requirement, these children must receive certificates of exemption from the county superintendent of education or the city superintendent of schools.

Alaska Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children between 7 and 16 years old.

Alaska Statutes Section 14.30.010 provides that a parent or another person who is responsible for a child between 7 and 16 years old must maintain the child in attendance at a public school in the district where the child resides during the entire school term. Numerous exceptions apply, such as situations when:

• The child is provided a comparable academic education by attendance at a private school with certified teachers, tutoring by certified personnel, or attendance at a certain type of educational program operated by a religious or other private school
• The child attends a school operated by the federal government
• The child is being educated in their home by a parent or guardian
• The child is temporarily ill or injured
• The child has a physical or mental condition that will make attendance impractical
• The child is in the custody of a court or law enforcement authorities
• The child lives more than 2 miles from a public school or a route on which transportation is provided by school authorities (unless the child lives within 2 miles of a federal or private school that the child is eligible and able to attend)
• The child has completed the 12th grade

If a parent or another person who is responsible for a 6-year-old child decides to enroll them in first grade at a public school, the child will be subject to the compulsory education law after their enrollment. However, if the parent or guardian decides within 60 days after enrollment that the best interests of the child are not being served, the child may be withdrawn from school, and the compulsory education requirement will not apply until the child is 7.

Arizona Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children between 6 and 16 years old.

Arizona Revised Statutes Section 15-803 provides that it is unlawful for a child between 6 and 16 years old to fail to attend school during the hours when school is in session. There are exceptions when:

• The child is excused for any of the numerous reasons listed in Section 15-802(D) or under Section 15-901(A)(5)(c)
• The child is accompanied by a parent or a person authorized by them
• The child is provided with instruction in a homeschool

A child may be adjudicated an incorrigible child if they are habitually truant, which means that they are truant for at least five school days in a school year. (A child is truant if they have an unexcused absence for at least one class period during the day.) A child also may be adjudicated an incorrigible child if they have excessive absences, which may occur if their number of absent days exceeds 10 percent of the statutorily required number of attendance days.

Arkansas Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who are 5 through 17 years old.

Arkansas Code Section 6-18-201 provides that a parent or another person who has control of a child who is 5 through 17 years old on or before the date established for the minimum age for enrollment in public school must send the child to a public, private, or parochial school, or provide a home school for the child. Exceptions apply when:

• The child has received a high school diploma or its equivalent
• The child is 16 or older and is enrolled in a post-secondary vocational-technical institution, a community college, or a two-year or four-year institution of higher education
• The child is 16 or older and is enrolled in an adult education program or the Arkansas National Guard Youth Challenge Program
• The child will not be 6 years old on the statutorily established date for the minimum age for enrollment in public school of that school year, and the parent or other person in control of the child does not want them to attend kindergarten and files a waiver form

A child who will be 6 years old on or before October 1 of the school year of enrollment and who has not completed a kindergarten program may be placed in the first grade if a school district evaluation indicates this placement, and the parent agrees. Otherwise, the child will be placed in kindergarten.

California Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children between the ages of 6 and 18.

California Education Code Section 48200 provides that each person between the ages of 6 and 18 is subject to compulsory full-time education. This means that a parent or other person who has control of the child must send them to a public full-time day school. Certain types of children are exempted from the requirement, such as:

• Children instructed in a private full-time day school by people capable of teaching
• Children who are mentally gifted and are being instructed in a private full-time day school by people capable of teaching, when at least 50 percent of the total daily instructional time is taught in English
• Children who are being instructed in study and recitation for at least three hours a day for 175 days per year by a private tutor or other person with a valid state credential
• Children who hold permits to work, although they must attend part-time classes

Children under 6 years old are excluded from public schools. The county office of education or the governing board of the school district of attendance must exclude a child who has not been immunized properly under the Health and Safety Code.

Colorado Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who are at least 6 and under 17.

Colorado Code Section 22-33-104 provides that a child who turns 6 years old on or before August 1 and is under the age of 17 must attend public school for at least 1,056 hours during the school year if they are a secondary school pupil, or 968 hours during the school year if they are an elementary school pupil in a grade other than kindergarten. (If they are a full-day kindergarten pupil, they must attend for at least 900 hours, or 450 hours if they are a half-day kindergarten pupil.) Various exceptions apply, such as when:

• The child is enrolled for at least 172 days in an independent or parochial school that provides a basic academic education
• The child is absent for an extended period due to a physical disability or a mental or behavioral health disorder
• The child is temporarily ill or injured, or the school administrator has approved their absence
• The child has graduated from the 12th grade
• The child is being instructed at home by a licensed teacher or under a non-public home-based educational program
• The child is pursuing a work study program under the supervision of a public school

Special rules apply to children who are deaf or blind.

Connecticut Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who are 5 or older and under 18.

Connecticut General Statutes Section 10-184 provides that a parent or another person who has control of a child who is 5 or older and under 18 must cause the child to attend a public school regularly during the hours and terms when the public school in the district where the child lives is in session. There are exceptions if the child is a high school graduate, or if the parent or other person in control of the child shows that the child is receiving instruction elsewhere that is equivalent to the studies taught in the public schools.

A parent or other person having control of a 5-year-old child has the option of not sending them to school until they are 6, and a parent or other person having control of a 6-year-old child has the option of not sending them to school until they are 7. The parent or other person must exercise this option by personally going to the school district office and signing an option form.

A student who is 18 or older may withdraw from school by personally appearing at the school district office and signing a withdrawal form. A parent or other person with control of a child who is 17 may withdraw the child from school and enroll them in an adult education program by personally appearing at the school district office and signing an adult education withdrawal and enrollment form.

Delaware Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children between 5 and 16 years old.

14 Delaware Code Section 2702 provides that every person who has legal custody or otherwise has legal control of a child between 5 and 16 years old must enroll the child in a public school in the school district where the person lives. However, Section 2703 provides that this requirement does not apply to a student enrolled in a private school who is receiving regular and thorough instruction in the subjects prescribed for public schools in a manner suitable to children of the same age and stage of advancement. Similarly, a student who is homeschooled as provided by Section 2703A is exempt from the compulsory education requirement. In addition, Section 2705 provides that a child may be exempt from the requirement upon request of their parent or other person with legal control of the child when the request is supported by written documentation from a physician, psychiatrist, psychologist, or neurologist.

A child over the age of 16 may withdraw from public school before graduation if their parent or guardian provides their written consent (if the student is under 18), and an exit interview is conducted at which the student and their parent or guardian are advised that this likely will reduce the student’s future earning potential and increase their risk of unemployment.

Florida Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who have turned 6 (or will turn 6 by February 1 of the school year) but have not turned 16.

Florida Statutes Section 1003.21 provides that children who have turned 6 (or who will turn 6 by February 1 of the school year) or who are older than 6 but have not turned 16 must attend school regularly during the entire school term. A student who turns 16 during the school year is not subject to compulsory attendance beyond their 16th birthday if they file a formal declaration of intent to terminate school enrollment with the district school board. The declaration must acknowledge that terminating school enrollment is likely to reduce the student’s earning potential and must be signed by the student and their parent. Public school students who have reached the age of 16 and have not graduated are subject to compulsory attendance until the formal declaration of intent is filed.

Georgia Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children between their 6th and 16th birthdays.

Georgia Code 20-2-690.1 provides that mandatory attendance in a public school, private school, or home school program is required for children between their 6th and 16th birthdays, unless a child has completed the requirements for a high school diploma. An unemancipated minor who is older than the age of mandatory attendance and has not completed the requirements for a high school diploma but wishes to withdraw from school must have the written permission of their parent or legal guardian before withdrawing. Before accepting this permission, the school principal or designee must hold a conference with the child and their parent or legal guardian within two school days of receiving notice of the intent of the child to withdraw from school.

Hawaii Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who have reached the age of 5 but will not have reached the age of 18 by January 1 of the school year.

Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 302A-1132 provides that children who have reached the age of 5 on or before July 31 of the school year, and who will not have reached the age of 18 by January 1 of the school year, must attend a public or private school during the school year. Any parent or other person responsible for a child whose attendance is required must send the child to a public or private school. Some exceptions apply, such as when:

• The child is physically or mentally unable to attend school (for reasons other than deafness or blindness), based on a certificate by a licensed physician
• The child is at least 15, is suitably employed, and has been excused from school attendance by the superintendent, their representative, or a family court judge
• The child may properly remain away from school, based on an investigation by the family court
• The child has graduated from high school
• The child is enrolled in an appropriate alternative educational program as approved by the superintendent or their representative

An exception also applies when the child has reached the age of 16, and the principal has decided that the child has engaged in behavior that is disruptive to other students, teachers, or staff or that their non-attendance is chronic and has become a significant factor that hinders the child’s learning, and the principal and the child’s teacher or counselor develops an alternative educational plan for the child in consultation with the child and the parent or other adult who is responsible for the child.

Idaho Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who have reached the age of 7 but not the age of 16.

Idaho Code Section 33-202 provides that the parent or guardian of a child who has reached the age of 7 but not the age of 16 at the time of the commencement of school in their district must ensure that the child is instructed in subjects that are commonly and usually taught in the public schools in the state. The parent or guardian can fulfill this responsibility in two ways. They can cause the child to be privately instructed by the parent or guardian (or at their direction), or they can enroll them in a public school, public charter school (including an online or virtual charter school), or private or parochial school.

However, Section 33-204 provides that the board of trustees of a school district may grant an exemption from this requirement when a licensed physician or psychiatrist states in writing that the physical, mental, or emotional condition of a child does not permit their attendance at school, and the parent or guardian of the child files a petition with the board seeking an exemption from the requirement.

Illinois Compulsory Education Law

105 Illinois Compiled Statutes Section 5/26-1 provides that anyone who has custody or control of a child between the ages of 6 and 17, unless the child has already graduated from high school, must cause the child to attend a public school in the district where the child lives for the entire time that the school is in session during the regular school term. However, children are not required to attend public school in certain situations, such as when:

• The child is attending a private or parochial school where children are taught the branches of education taught to children of corresponding age and grade in public schools and are taught in the English language
• The child is physically or mentally unable to attend school, or is excused for a temporary absence for cause by the principal or teacher of their school
• The child is over 12 and under 14 and is attending confirmation classes
• The child is necessarily and lawfully employed, and they are excused from attendance by the county superintendent of schools or the superintendent of the public school that they should be attending
• The child is absent from a public school because they are unable to attend classes or participate in schoolwork on a certain day or at a certain time of day for religious reasons
• The child is absent from a public school on a certain day or at a certain time of day for various reasons related to the service of their parent or legal guardian as an active duty member of the armed forces
• The child is 16 or older, submits evidence of necessary and lawful employment to a school district, and is enrolled in a graduation incentives program or an alternative learning opportunities program

A child is considered 6 years old for the purpose of the compulsory education requirement if they turn 6 on or before September 1 of that year.

Indiana Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally begins in the school year when the child turns 7 (or potentially earlier) and has varying end dates.

Indiana Code Section 20-33-2-4 provides that a student must attend a public school that they are entitled to attend or another school taught in the English language. Section 20-33-2-6 provides that a student is generally covered by the compulsory school attendance rules starting with the date on which they officially enroll in a school or the beginning of the fall school term for the school year in which they turn 7, whichever is earlier. They remain covered by these rules until they graduate, become 18 years old, or become 16 years old and fulfill requirements provided by Section 20-33-2-9 for withdrawal and exit interviews that allow a student to withdraw from school before graduation, whichever is earliest.

Section 20-33-2-9 provides that a student who is at least 16 but under 18 may not withdraw from school before graduation unless the student, their parent, and the principal agree to the withdrawal, the parent and the principal provide written consent, and the withdrawal is due to illness, a court order, or financial hardship that requires the student to be employed to support their family or a dependent.

Iowa Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who have reached the age of 6 and are under 16 by September 15.

Iowa Code Section 299.1 provides that the parent, guardian, or custodian of a child of the required age must cause the child to attend a public school or an accredited non-public school, or place them under competent private instruction or independent private instruction as described by the statute. Section 299.2 lists certain exceptions, such as situations when:

• The child has completed the requirements for graduation in an accredited school or obtained a high school equivalency diploma
• The child is excused by a court or judge
• The child is attending religious services or receiving religious instructions
• The child is attending an accredited private college preparatory school

Section 299.1A provides that a child who has reached the age of 6 and is under 16 by September 15 is subject to the compulsory attendance requirement. If a child enrolled in a school district or accredited non-public school reaches the age of 16 on or after September 15, they are still subject to the requirement until the end of the school calendar. Moreover, a child who reaches the age of 5 by September 15 and is enrolled in a school district is considered subject to the compulsory attendance requirement unless their parent or guardian notifies the school district in writing of their intent to remove the child from enrollment in the school district.

Kansas Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who have reached the age of 7 and are under the age of 18.

Kansas Statutes Section 72-3120 provides that a parent or someone else who has control over a child who has reached the age of 7 and is under the age of 18 must require the child to be regularly enrolled in and continuously attend a public school for the duration of the school term, or a private, denominational, or parochial school taught by a competent instructor for a period of time that is essentially equal to the time during which public school is maintained in the school district. (The requirement does not apply if the child has received a high school diploma or a GED credential.) If the child is 16 or 17, the parent or other adult with control over the child may allow the child to be exempt from the compulsory attendance requirement by providing their written consent.

If the child is 16 or 17, the child will be exempt from the compulsory attendance requirement if the child is regularly enrolled in and attending an approved alternative educational program, the child and the parent (or the person acting as a parent) attend a counseling session and sign a disclaimer, or the child is regularly enrolled in a school and is concurrently enrolled in a post-secondary educational institution.

A child who is under 7 but enrolled in school is subject to the requirement. However, their parent or another person acting as a parent may withdraw the child from school, which will make them exempt from the requirement until they turn 7 or are enrolled again.

Kentucky Compulsory Education Law

Kentucky Revised Statutes Section 159.010 provides that a parent or another person who has custody of a child between the ages of 6 and 18 must send the child to a regular public day school. Section 159.030 provides several exceptions to the compulsory attendance rule. These include situations when:

• The child has graduated from an accredited or approved four-year high school
• The child is enrolled and in regular attendance in a private, parochial, or church regular day school
• The child’s physical or mental condition prevents them from attending school, or makes it inadvisable
• The child is under 7 and is enrolled and in regular attendance at a private kindergarten or nursery school
• The child is enrolled and in regular attendance in a private, parochial, church, or state-supported program for exceptional children

Specific rules apply to the medical condition exception, such as providing a signed statement from an appropriate healthcare provider as described by the statute.

Louisiana Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who are ages 5 (by September 30) through 18.

Louisiana Revised Statutes Section 17:221 provides that the parent or legal guardian of a child who is age 5 (by September 30 of the year in which the school year begins) through 18 must send the child to a public or non-public school, unless the parent or legal guardian chooses to defer enrollment of their child in kindergarten or the child graduates from high school before turning 18. The parent or legal guardian is responsible for assuring the attendance of the child in regularly assigned classes during regular school hours. The statute notes that a parent or legal guardian will be considered in compliance with the school attendance provisions if their child is enrolled in an approved home study program.

A parent or another person who is responsible for the school attendance of a child under 18 who is enrolled in school beyond their 16th birthday may ask that the student be allowed to attend an alternative education program or a vocational-technical education program. Also, a child who is at least 16 may enroll in an effective adult education program if they meet the criteria for this program.

Section 17:226 makes certain children exempt from the compulsory attendance requirement, such as children who are mentally, physically, or emotionally incapacitated to perform school duties, children unable to profit from further school experience, or children who are temporarily excused from school for reasons specified by statute.

Maine Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who are 6 or older and under 17.

20-A Maine Revised Statutes Section 5001-A provides that a person who is 6 or older and under 17 must attend a public day school during the time when it is in regular session. Moreover, a person who is 5 and under 6 who is enrolled in a public day school and has not withdrawn must attend that school while it is in session. This requirement does not apply to a person who graduates from high school before turning 17. It also does not apply to a person who has reached the age of 15 or completed the 9th grade if they have permission to leave school from their parent and the school board, they have been approved by the principal for a suitable program of work and study or training, and they have agreed in writing with their parent and the school board to meet annually until their 17th birthday to review their educational needs.

However, a person is excused from attending a public day school if they obtain equivalent instruction in a private school approved for attendance purposes, a private school recognized by the Maine Department of Education as providing equivalent instruction, a home instruction program that meets statutory requirements, or any other manner arranged by the school board and approved by the commissioner.

Maryland Compulsory Education Law

Maryland Education Code Section 7-301 provides that each child who resides in Maryland and is 5 or older and under 18 must attend a public school regularly during the entire school year. The statute provides numerous exceptions, such as situations when:

• The child has received a high school diploma or a GED
• The child is receiving regular, thorough instruction during the school year in the studies usually taught in public schools to children of their age
• The child is severely ill and requires home or hospital instruction
• The child provides financial support to their family
• The child is married or in the military
• The child attends an alternative educational program, or is pregnant or a parent and is enrolled in an alternative educational program
• The child is committed by court order to an institution without an educational program

This requirement applies to a child with a mental, emotional, or physical disability, but it does not apply to a child whose mental, emotional, or physical condition makes the child’s instruction detrimental to their progress, or whose presence in school poses a risk of serious physical harm to others.

Massachusetts Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children between the minimum and maximum ages established for school attendance by the state board of education.

Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 76 Section 1 provides that a child between the minimum and maximum ages established for school attendance must attend a public day school in the town where they live, or another day school approved by the school committee. Massachusetts regulations provide that each child must attend school beginning in September of the year in which they turn 6. Attendance is not required in certain situations:

• The physical or mental condition of the child makes their attendance inexpedient or impracticable
• The child has received an employment permit from the superintendent of schools
• The child is otherwise instructed in a manner approved in advance by the superintendent or the school committee

A school committee must approve a private school when it finds that the instruction in all the studies required by law equals the instruction in the public schools in the same town, and it must not withhold its approval due to religious teaching.

Michigan Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to a child from the age of 6 until their 18th birthday.

Michigan Compiled Laws Section 380.1561 provides that a parent or another person who has control of a child must send them to a public school during the entire school year from the age of 6 until their 18th birthday. Several exceptions apply, such as situations when:

• The child has graduated from high school or fulfilled the requirements for high school graduation
• The child is being taught in a state-approved non-public school that teaches subjects comparable to those taught in the public schools to children of a similar age and grade
• The child is being educated at home by their parent or legal guardian in an organized educational program in certain subject areas enumerated by statute
• The child is under 9 and does not live within 2.5 miles from a public school, and transportation is not provided for pupils in their school district
• The child is 12 or 13 and attending confirmation classes for 5 months or less

A child who turns 6 before December 1 must be enrolled on the first school day of the school year in which their sixth birthday occurs, while a child who turns 6 on or after December 1 must be enrolled on the first school day of the school year following the school year in which their sixth birthday occurs.

Minnesota Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children between 7 and 17 years old.

Minnesota Statutes Section 120A.22 provides that every child between 7 and 17 years of age must receive instruction unless they have graduated. Instruction may be provided through a public school or a non-public school, church, or religious organization, or through a home school. If a child under the age of 7 is enrolled in kindergarten or a higher grade in a public school, they are generally subject to the compulsory attendance requirement, although they may be withdrawn from enrollment for good cause.

A student who is 17 and wants to withdraw from school must attend a meeting with school personnel to discuss the educational opportunities available to them and sign a form to withdraw from the school. Their parent or guardian also must attend the meeting and sign the form.

A parent or another person who has control of a child may ask a school district to excuse the child from attendance for certain permitted reasons. These include situations when the child’s physical or mental health prevents them from attending school, or when the child has already completed state and district standards required for high school graduation.

Mississippi Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who have turned or will turn 6 on or before September 1 and who have not turned 17 on or before September 1.

Mississippi Code Section 37-13-91 provides that a parent or another person who has custody of a “compulsory school age child” (as defined above) must cause the child to attend a public school or a legitimate non-public school for the time that they are of compulsory school age. The statute provides a few exceptions:

• The child is physically, mentally, or emotionally incapable of attending school, based on medical documentation
• The child is pursuing a course of special education, remedial education, or education for handicapped or physically or mentally disadvantaged children
• The child is being educated in a legitimate home instruction program

A compulsory school age child is further defined as a child who has turned or will turn 5 on or before September 1 and has enrolled in a full-day public school kindergarten program.

Missouri Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children between the age of 7 and the compulsory attendance age for the school district.

Missouri Revised Statutes Section 167.031 provides that a parent or another person who has control of a child between the age of 7 and the compulsory attendance age for the district must cause them to regularly attend a public, private, parochial, parish, or home school, or a combination of these schools. The compulsory attendance age for a district is generally 17, although the school board of a metropolitan school district may lower the compulsory attendance age to 16.

Exceptions apply when the child is mentally or physically incapacitated, or when the child is 14 or older and has found legal employment that is “desirable,” and their parents or guardian have been advised of this action.

A parent or another person who enrolls a child between the ages of 5 and 7 in a public school program must cause them to attend the program on a regular basis. However, they will be excused from attendance if the parent or other person makes a written request that the child be dropped from the school’s rolls.

Montana Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to a child from the age of 7 until their 16th birthday, or until they finish the 8th grade if later.

Montana Code Section 20-5-102 provides that a parent or another person responsible for the care of a child who is 7 or older before the first day of school in a school year must cause the child to be instructed in a program prescribed by the board of public education. The requirement lasts until the child’s 16th birthday or the date when they complete the 8th grade if that is later. Exceptions apply in certain situations, such as when:

• The child is provided with supervised correspondence study or supervised home study
• The child is excused from compulsory school attendance upon a determination by a judge that attendance is not in the child’s best interest
• The child is 16 or older, and the board of trustees decides that attendance is not in the best interest of the child and the school
• The child is enrolled in a non-public or home school that meets statutory requirements

The statute defines a non-public school as a parochial, church, religious, or private school, while it defines a home school as the instruction by a parent of their child, stepchild, or ward in their residence.

Nebraska Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to a child who will turn 6 before January 1 of the current school year and has not turned 18.

Nebraska Revised Statutes Section 79-201 provides that anyone who has legal or actual control of a child who is within the age range above, or who is enrolled in a public school, must cause the child to regularly attend a public, private, denominational, or parochial day school when the school is open and in session. Some exceptions may apply, such as situations when:

• The child has received a high school diploma
• The child will not turn 7 before January 1 of the current school year, and their parent or guardian has signed and filed an affidavit stating that the child is participating in an education program that will prepare them to enter grade one for the next school year
• The child will not turn 6 before January 1 of the current school year, and they were enrolled in a public school but have discontinued the enrollment
• The child is at least 16 and has been withdrawn from school through the statutorily required process

Section 79-202 describes the withdrawal process. This generally involves attending an exit interview and signing a withdrawal form.

Nevada Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children between the ages of 7 and 18.

Nevada Revised Statutes Section 392.040 provides that a parent or another person who has control of a child between the ages of 7 and 18 must send the child to a public school in the school district where the child lives, unless they have graduated from high school. Various related statutes provide exceptions to this requirement.

For example, Section 392.050 states that a child must be excused from attendance when the child’s physical or mental condition or behavioral health prevents their attendance at school or makes it inadvisable, as shown by satisfactory written evidence. Section 392.060 further provides that attendance is excused when the child has already completed the 12 grades of the elementary and high school courses, as shown by satisfactory written evidence. Section 392.070 excuses children who are enrolled in a private school, or for whom a parent chooses to provide education and files a notice of intent to homeschool the child with the superintendent of schools.

Attendance is also excused if a child has received permission to take the high school equivalency assessment, lives so far from the nearest public school that their attendance is unsafe or impractical, or is at least 15 years old, has completed the work of the first eight grades, and is entering employment or apprenticeship.

New Hampshire Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to a child who is at least 6 and under 18.

New Hampshire Revised Statutes Section 193:1 provides that a parent of a child (or someone else who has custody of a child) who is at least 6 and under 18 must cause them to attend the public school to which they are assigned in their resident district. Various exceptions may apply, such as situations when:

• The child is attending a public school outside their district or an approved private school
• The child is receiving home education
• The child is excused from attendance because they are physically or mentally unable to attend school
• The child has completed the requirements for graduation
• The child has been accepted into an accredited post-secondary education program
• The child has gotten a waiver from the superintendent for an alternative learning plan for obtaining a high school diploma or the equivalent (only for children 16 or older)

If a child turns 6 after September 30, the compulsory attendance requirement will not apply to them until the following school year.

New Jersey Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children between the ages of 6 and 16.

New Jersey Revised Statutes Section 18A:38-25 provides that a parent or another person who has custody of a child between the ages of 6 and 16 must cause them to regularly attend the public schools of the district or a day school that provides equivalent instruction for children of similar grades and attainments, or cause them to receive equivalent instruction elsewhere. Regular attendance is required during all the days and hours when public schools in the district are in session, unless the child’s mental condition prevents them from benefiting from instruction, or their physical condition prevents their attendance.

New Mexico Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to a child who is at least 5 (before September 1) but under 18.

New Mexico Statutes Section 22-12A-4 provides that a “school-age person” must attend public school, private school, home school, or a state institution until they are at least 18. (A school-age person is defined elsewhere as someone who is at least 5 before September 1 of the school year, has not received a high school diploma or its equivalent, and has not reached their 22nd birthday on the first day of the school year.) Exceptions apply if the school-age person has graduated from high school, received a high school equivalency credential, or withdrawn from school on a hardship waiver, which is when a parent gives signed permission for a school-age person between 16 and 18 to leave school due to hardship.

New York Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children from 6 to 16 years old.

New York Education Law Section 3205 provides that each minor from 6 to 16 years old must attend school upon full-time instruction, whether at a public school or elsewhere. The board of education in each school district may require minors from 16 to 17 years old who are not employed to attend school upon full-time day instruction until the last day of session in the school year in which the minor turns 17. However, the statute exempts a minor who has completed a four-year high school course of study, and it allows a minor to attend part-time school for at least 20 hours per week when they have made an application for a full-time employment certificate and are eligible for it, even if they are unemployed.

For calculating the age requirements, a minor who turns 6 on or before December 1 in a school year must attend full-time instruction starting in September of that school year, while a minor who turns 6 after December 1 must attend from the following September. A minor must remain in attendance until the end of the school year in which they turn 16.

North Carolina Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children between the ages of 7 and 16.

North Carolina General Statutes Section 115C-378 provides that a parent or someone else who has control of a child between the ages of 7 and 16 must cause the child to attend school continuously for a period equal to the time that the public school to which the child is assigned is in session. If a child under 7 is enrolled in a public school, their parent or other custodian also must cause them to attend school continuously unless the child has withdrawn from school. For the purposes of this law, “school” includes public schools and any non-public schools that have teachers and curricula approved by the State Board of Education.

North Dakota Compulsory Education Law

North Dakota Century Code Section 15.1-20-01 provides that a person who is responsible for a child between the ages of 7 and 16 must ensure that the child attends a public school. Section 15.1-20-02 provides several exceptions, such as situations when:

• The child has completed high school
• The child is in attendance for the same length of time at an approved non-public school
• The child is necessary to the support of the child’s family
• The child has a disability that makes attendance or participation in a regular or special education program inexpedient or impracticable

The person responsible for the child must prove one of the grounds for an exemption to the satisfaction of the school board. The person responsible for the child may appeal an adverse decision by the school board to a district court.

Ohio Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children between 6 and 18 years old.

Ohio Revised Code Section 3321.01 provides that a child between 6 and 18 is of compulsory school age. A child under 6 who has been enrolled in kindergarten also will be considered of compulsory school age unless their parent or guardian withdraws them from kindergarten. Section 3321.04 requires that every parent of a child of compulsory school age who is not employed under an age and schooling certificate must send the child to a school or special education program that conforms to the minimum standards prescribed by the state board of education.

A school superintendent may excuse a child from attendance if their bodily or mental condition does not permit attendance at school, and plans are made for appropriate instruction of the child, or if they are being instructed at home by a person who is qualified to teach the topics in which instruction is required and any additional topics that the advancement and needs of the child may require. In addition, the state board of education may adopt rules authorizing school superintendents to excuse a child over 14 years old from attendance for a future limited period so that they can perform necessary work for the child’s parents or legal guardians.

Oklahoma Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who are over 5 and under 18.

Oklahoma Statutes Section 70-10-105 provides that a parent or another person who has custody of a child who is over 5 and under 18 cannot neglect to cause the child to attend and comply with the rules of a public, private, or other school, unless other means of education are provided for the full term that the schools in the district are in session. Moreover, a child who is over 12 and under 18 is prohibited from refusing to attend and comply with the rules of a public, private, or other school, or receive an education by other means for the full term that the schools in the district are in session.

The statute provides certain exceptions, such as when the child is prevented from attending school due to a mental or physical disability, or when a child who is at least 16 is excused from attending school by a written agreement involving the school administrator and the parent or other person with custody of the child. These agreements are allowed only if excusing the child from attending school is for the best interest of the child or the community, and the child will be under the supervision of the parent or other person with custody until they turn 18.

Oregon Compulsory Education Law

Oregon Revised Statutes Section 339.010 provides that children between the ages of 6 and 18 who have not completed the 12th grade must regularly attend a public full-time school during the entire school term. A child is 6 years old for these purposes if their 6th birthday occurred on or before September 1 preceding the beginning of the current school term. Section 339.030 lists certain exceptions to the requirement, such as situations when:

• The child has received a high school diploma or a modified diploma
• The child is being taught in a private or parochial school in the courses of study usually taught in K-12 in the public schools
• The child is being taught by a private teacher in the courses of study usually taught in K-12 in the public schools
• The child is being educated in their home by a parent or legal guardian
• The child can prove to the satisfaction of the school board that they have acquired equivalent knowledge to what is acquired in the courses of study taught in K-12 in the public schools
• The child is in the U.S. on a non-immigrant visa and is attending a private, accredited English language learner program in preparation for attending a private high school or college

Moreover, a child who turned 6 on or before September 1 preceding the beginning of the current school year is exempt from the requirement if their parent or legal guardian informed the school district in writing that the parent or legal guardian will delay enrolling the child in a public full-time school for one school year so that they can better meet the child’s needs for cognitive, social, or physical development.

Pennsylvania Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children of “compulsory school age,” which means from 6 until they turn 18.

24 Pennsylvania Statutes Section 13-1327 provides that every child of compulsory school age must attend a day school in which the subjects and activities prescribed by the state board of education are taught in the English language. However, a child who is 15 or 16 may enroll as a day student in certain types of trade schools or business schools if they get certain permissions. (A child who is 15 must get the approval of the district superintendent and the Secretary of Education, while a child who is 16 must get the approval of the district superintendent.) Instruction to children of compulsory school age in a home education program is considered to comply with the requirement.

Certain children may be exempt from the compulsory attendance requirement, such as:

• Children who are unable to profit from further public school attendance
• Children who are 16 or older and are regularly engaged in useful and lawful employment or service, while holding an employment certificate
• Children who are 15 or older and are engaged in farm work or domestic service in a private home on a permit issued by school authorities
• Children who are 14 or older and are engaged in farm work or domestic service in a private home on a permit, and who have completed a certain level of education

In some school districts, children who live 2 miles or more from the closest public school may be exempt if free transportation to school is not provided.

Rhode Island Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who turn 6 on or before September 1 but have not turned 18.

Rhode Island General Laws Section 16-19-1 provides that a child who turns 6 on or before September 1 of a school year, or is enrolled in kindergarten, and has not yet turned 18 must regularly attend a public day school when public schools are in session in the city or town where they live. However, attendance is not obligatory in the following situations:

• The child has attended an approved private day school
• The child has attended an approved course of at-home instruction
• The child has received a waiver of the requirement upon proof that the child has an alternative learning plan for obtaining a high school diploma or its equivalent
• The physical or mental condition of the child makes their attendance at school inexpedient or impracticable
• The child was excluded from school due to another law or regulation

Section 16-19-2 outlines the requirements that a private school or at-home instruction must meet for the purposes of satisfying the compulsory education requirement.

South Carolina Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who are at least 5 before September 1 but under 17.

South Carolina Code of Laws Section 59-65-10 provides that a parent or guardian must require their child to regularly attend school from the school year in which the child is 5 years old before September 1 until the child turns 17 or graduates from high school. Any of the following schools meets this requirement:

• A public or private school or kindergarten approved by the state board of education
• A member school of the South Carolina Independent Schools’ Association or the South Carolina Association of Christian Schools, or a similar organization
• A parochial, denominational, or church-related school
• Other programs approved by the state board of education

Exceptions apply to certain types of children, such as:

• Children who have graduated from high school or received the equivalent of a high school education
• Children who are unable to attend school due to a physical or mental disability, as shown by an appropriate certificate
• Children who have completed the eighth grade and are determined by the court to be legally and gainfully employed, and their employment is necessary for the maintenance of their home
• Children who are 16 and whose further attendance is determined by a court to be disruptive to the educational program of the school, unproductive of further learning, or not in the best interest of the child

If the child is not yet 6 on or before September 1 in a school year, their parent or guardian may elect for the child not to attend kindergarten. They must sign a document indicating this decision and provide it to the governing body of the school district.

South Dakota Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who are at least 5 by September 1 but have not turned 18.

South Dakota Codified Laws Section 13-27-1 provides that a person who has control of a child who is not younger than 5 or older than 6 by September 1, or who is at least 6 by September 1 but has not exceeded the age of 18, must cause the child to regularly attend school until the child turns 18, unless they have graduated or are excused for certain narrow circumstances provided by statute. A qualifying school program may be public, non-public, or alternative instruction. A child must attend kindergarten until they turn 7. However, the compulsory education requirement is met if a child who is at least 16 enrolls in a high school equivalency test preparation program and successfully completes the test or turns 18.

Section 13-27-1.1 outlines a religious exemption for certain children of compulsory school age who have successfully completed the first eight grades. To fall within this exemption, the child or their parents must be members of a church or religious denomination that objects to public high school education, and the church or religious denomination must provide a regularly supervised program of instruction in which a child participates in learning activities appropriate to their likely adult occupation.

Tennessee Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children between 6 and 17 years old, inclusive.

Tennessee Code Section 49-6-3001 provides that every parent or other person in control of a child between 6 and 17 years of age (inclusive) must cause the child to attend public or non-public school. A non-public school includes a church-related school, a home school, or a private school. The statute provides certain exceptions, such as situations when:

• The child has received a diploma or another graduation certificate from a secondary high school
• The child is enrolled and making satisfactory progress in a course leading to a GED certificate or has obtained a GED
• The child is 6 or younger, and their parent or guardian has filed a notice of intent to conduct a home school
• The child is enrolled in a home school and has turned 17
• The child is mentally or physically incapacitated to perform school duties
• The child is 17, and their continued compulsory attendance undermines good order and discipline and the instruction of other students, while not providing a substantial benefit to the child

A parent or guardian with a good and substantial reason, as agreed by the local board of education, may withdraw their child from a public school. However, they must place the child in a public school designated by the local board of education or a non-public school within 30 days after withdrawal.

Texas Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who are at least 6 but have not turned 19.

Texas Education Code Section 25.085 provides that a child who is at least 6, or younger than 6 and previously enrolled in first grade, but not yet 19 must attend school. The law also requires a child to attend school upon enrolling in pre-kindergarten or kindergarten. Section 25.086 provides numerous exceptions to the requirement, such as situations when:

• The child attends a private or parochial school that includes a study of good citizenship in its course
• The child is at least 17 and has received a high school diploma or high school equivalency certificate
• The child is at least 16 and is attending a course of instruction to prepare for the high school equivalency examination (if certain requirements are met)
• The child is at least 16 and is enrolled in a high school diploma program under Chapter 18 of the Education Code
• The child is enrolled in the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, the Texas Academy of Leadership in the Humanities, or the Texas Academy of International Studies
• The child has a physical or mental condition that is temporary and remediable but makes their attendance infeasible

A person who chooses to enroll in school or attend school after their 19th birthday must attend school for each school day during the entire period for which the program of instruction is offered.

Utah Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who are at least 6 but younger than 18.

Utah Code Section 53G-6-202 provides that the parent of a school-age child (defined as anyone with authority over a child who is at least 6 but younger than 18) must send the child to a public or regularly established private school. Section 53G-6-204 provides several exceptions, such as situations when:

• The child has already completed the work required for graduation from high school
• The child is in a physical or mental condition that makes their attendance inexpedient and impracticable
• Proper influences and adequate opportunities for education are provided in connection with the child’s employment
• The child is over 16 and unable to benefit from attendance at school due to inability or a continuing negative attitude toward school regulations and discipline
• The child’s parent files a signed and notarized affidavit with the child’s school district, stating that the child will attend a home school, and the parent assumes sole responsibility for the education of the child

In addition, a child over 16 may get a partial release from school to enter employment or attend a trade school if the child has completed the eighth grade.

Vermont Compulsory Education Law

16 Vermont Statutes Section 1121 provides that a person who has control of a child between the ages of 6 and 16 must cause the child to attend a public school, an approved or recognized independent school, an approved education program, or a home study program. The law provides exceptions for situations such as when:

• The child is mentally or physically unable to attend school
• The child has completed the 10th grade
• The child is excused by the superintendent or a majority of the school directors
• The child is attending a post-secondary school

Moreover, a person who has control of a child over 16 and allows them to become enrolled in a public school must cause the child to attend the school continually for the full number of school days in the term, unless the child is mentally or physically unable to continue or is excused by the superintendent or a majority of the school directors.

Virginia Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who have turned 5 on or before September 30 and have not turned 18.

Code of Virginia Section 22.1-254 provides that a parent or other person who has control of a child who has turned 5 on or before September 30 of a school year and has not turned 18 must cause the child to attend a public school or a private, denominational, or parochial school. Alternatively, they can have the child taught by a tutor or provide for home instruction of the child. The requirement also may be satisfied by causing the child to attend an alternative program of study or work/study offered by a public, private, denominational, or parochial school, or a degree-granting institution of higher education. For a child who is 5, the requirement may be met if they attend a public educational pre-kindergarten program, or a private, denominational, or parochial educational pre-kindergarten program.

The law provides for mandatory exemptions from attendance based on conscientious opposition to attendance due to a bona fide religious training or belief, or based on a justified concern for the child’s health or reasonable apprehension for their safety. A school board also may excuse a child who cannot benefit from education at a school. A child who is at least 16 may meet the requirement if an individual student alternative education plan has been developed for them.

Washington Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who are at least 8 and under 18.

Revised Code of Washington Section 28A.225.010 provides that a parent or other person with custody of a child who is at least 8 and under 18 must cause the child to attend the public school of the district where they live. The law provides several exemptions, such as situations when:

• The child is attending an approved private school
• The child is receiving home-based instruction
• The child is attending an education center
• The school district superintendent has excused the child from attendance because they are physically or mentally unable to attend school
• The child is at least 16 and has already met graduation requirements or received a certificate of educational competence
• The child is at least 16 and is regularly and lawfully employed, and they are emancipated or have gotten consent from their parent that they should not be required to attend school

The law describes in detail what home-based instruction must involve to qualify for an exemption, while noting that these provisions should be broadly interpreted.

Washington, D.C. Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who are 5 or older (on or before September 30) but not yet 18.

District of Columbia Code Section 38-202 provides that a parent or other person who has custody of a minor who is at least 5 (or will turn 5 on or before September 30) must place the minor in regular attendance in an educational institution until the minor turns 18. A minor who is 17 may be allowed flexible school hours if they are lawfully, gainfully, and regularly employed, although this does not provide a basis for fully excusing them from attending school or putting their timely graduation at risk. The requirement does not apply to a minor who has satisfactorily completed their senior high school course of study and been granted a high school diploma or the equivalent.

An educational institution is broadly defined as a public school, a public charter school, an independent school, a private school, a parochial school, or a private instructor.

West Virginia Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who are at least 6 but under 17.

West Virginia Code Section 18-8-1a provides that compulsory school attendance begins with the school year when the child turns 6 before July 1 of the year, or when the child enrolls in a publicly funded kindergarten program, and continues until they turn 17, or for as long as they continue to be enrolled in a school system if that is later. A child may be removed from a publicly funded kindergarten program if their parent or guardian decides that their best interest would not be served by further attendance. Section 18-8-1 lists certain exemptions to the requirement, such as situations when:

• The child is attending a private, parochial, or other approved school
• The child is receiving home instruction (and certain complex requirements are met)
• The child participates in a learning pod or microschool
• The child is physically or mentally incapable of attending school and performing school work
• Conditions that make school attendance impossible or hazardous to the life, health, or safety of the child exist
• The child has graduated from a standard senior high school or completed an alternate secondary program
• The child has been granted a work permit (not available for anyone who has not completed the eighth grade)
• There is a condition of extreme destitution in the child’s home

Any cause or condition that may form the basis of an exemption is subject to confirmation by the county authority for school attendance.

Wisconsin Compulsory Education Law

Wisconsin Statutes Section 118.15 provides that a person who has control of a child between the ages of 6 and 18 must cause the child to attend school regularly during the full period and hours that the public, private, or tribal school in which the child should be enrolled is in session until the end of the term in which the child turns 18. Similarly, a person who has control of a child enrolled in 5-year-old kindergarten must cause the child to attend school regularly. The law provides various exceptions, such as situations when:

• The child is at least 16 and a child at risk, and they are attending a technical college (if the child and their parent or guardian agree that the child will participate in a program leading to their high school graduation)
• The child is 16, and the child and their parent or guardian agree that the child will participate in a program or curriculum modification leading to their high school graduation
• The child is 17 or older, and the child and their parent or guardian agree that the child will participate in a program or curriculum modification leading to their high school graduation or a high school equivalency diploma
• The child is temporarily not in proper physical or mental condition to attend a school program but can be expected to return when their condition improves
• The child has been excused by the school board in accordance with its written attendance policy and with the written approval of the child’s parent or guardian

Instruction in a home-based private educational program that meets certain statutory criteria may be substituted for attendance at a public or private school.

Wyoming Compulsory Education Law

The requirement generally applies to children who are at least 7 and have not yet turned 16 or completed the 10th grade.

Wyoming Statutes Section 21-4-102 provides that a parent or other person who has control of a child who has turned 7 on or before August 1 and has not yet turned 16 or completed the 10th grade is required to send the child to a public or private school each year. A private school includes any non-public, elementary, or secondary school providing a basic academic educational program for children, such as parochial and church or religious schools and home-based educational programs.

However, the board of trustees of a school district may exempt a child from the requirement in certain situations. These include when the board believes that compulsory attendance would undermine the mental or physical health of the child or other children in the school, or when the board feels that compulsory school attendance might cause undue hardship.

A parent or other person who has control of a child under the age of 18 and has not notified the school district of enrolling the child in a different school district or in a private school or home-based educational program must meet in person with a school district counselor or administrator to provide written consent to the withdrawal of the child from school.

Last reviewed October 2023

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What you need to know about the right to education

Why is it important to have the right to education formally enshrined in law and other instruments   .

Around 244 million children and youth are deprived of education worldwide as a result of social, economic and cultural factors. 98 million of whom are in Sub-Saharan Africa, the region with the highest out-of-school population. Yet only 70 per cent of the world’s countries legally guarantee 9 years or more of compulsory education. And an estimated 771 million young people and adults lack basic literacy skills, of which two thirds are women

Education is an empowering right in itself and one of the most powerful tools by which economically and socially marginalized children and adults can lift themselves out of poverty and participate fully in society. To unleash the full transformational power of education and meet international markers of progress such as those of the Sustainable Development Agenda, everyone must have access to it. Binding countries to certain standards by way of law is one way of ensuring access to quality education is widened. Legal guarantees and protection of the right to education are not time-bound (unlike policies and plans). They also ensure that  judicial mechanisms  (such as courts and tribunals) can determine whether human rights obligations are respected, impose sanctions for violations and transgressions, and ensure that appropriate action is taken.

What are the key legal documents and instruments?  

Education as a fundamental human right is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and many other international human rights instruments . UNESCO’s foremost standard-setting instrument is the Convention against discrimination in education  which dates from 1960 and has so far been ratified by 107 States. It is the first international instrument which covers the right to education extensively and has a binding force in international law. The Convention also acts as a cornerstone of the Education 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goal 4 for education adopted by the international community. SDG 4 is rights-based and seeks to ensure the full enjoyment of the right to education as fundamental to achieving sustainable development.  

How does UNESCO work to ensure the right to education?  

Through its programme on the right to education, UNESCO develops, monitors and promotes education norms and standards in relation to the right to education to advance the aims of the Education 2030 Agenda. It provides guidance, technical advice and assistance  to Member States in reviewing or developing their own legal and policy frameworks, and builds capacities, partnerships and awareness on key challenges especially in light of the  evolving education context .  

It also supports and monitors States in their application of legal instruments, conventions and recommendations through periodic consultations , its online Observatory on the right to education and the interactive tool, Her Atlas, which shows where in the world and to what extent women and girls have their educational rights protected by law. As part of the monitoring, UNESCO also works closely with the UN system and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.   

In addition, it advocates for and promotes the right to education through communication actions  as well as research and studies on specific components of this right such as on pre-primary education, higher education , and digital learning .  

UNESCO mobilises, develops and fosters global partnerships to raise awareness on key issues such as the right to education of climate-displaced persons , non-state actors in education  and the right to education of vulnerable groups .  

Who does UNESCO partner with to ensure the right to education?

UNESCO has the lead role and responsibility in the field of the right to education in the United Nations system and cooperates with the following United Nations human rights bodies in monitoring the implementation of treaties and conventions relating to that right:

• Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
• UN Human Rights Committees
• Universal Periodic Review
• UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education
• International Labour Organization

UNESCO also acknowledges the importance of non-governmental organizations (NGOS), associations and the intellectual community in international cooperation and has built a network with organizations in its fields of competence including:

• The Right to Education Initiative  promotes mobilization and accountability on the right to education and builds bridges between human rights, development and education.
• The International Organization for the Right to Education and Freedom of Education, OIDEL  - a non-profit NGO promoting and creating novel educational models and policies and financing options for schools.  

More on UNESCO's partners for the right to education .

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Right To Education Act 2009

The Parliament of India enacted the Right To Education Act 2009 to grapple with the downward spiral of the education system and poor learning outcomes. The act aims towards providing free and compulsory elementary education to kids between the age group of 6 years to 14 years . The Indian government wants every Indian child to get a quality education, irrespective of gender, caste, creed, and family income.

The RTE Act was enacted on 4 August 2009, and since its inception, we have seen a lot of changes in the enrolment levels, equitable access, literacy rates of states and education standards. Let us look at the impact of the right to education act and the important statistics you need to know.

What Is RTE Act 2009?

The enactment of the Right to Education Act under Article 21a of the Indian Constitution was a major move to change the failing landscape of education in India. Education is one of the most powerful tools to uplift a nation and equip children with essential skills. According to a report by UNESCO, 159 countries around the world guarantee free education for 9 years or more and India is now a part of the list.

Important points to remember:

• The act came into effect on 1 April 2010 and it clearly states education is a fundamental right of every child.
• All private schools must keep 25% of seats reserved for children belonging to weaker sections of society.
• Unrecognized schools cannot interview a child or the parent for admission.
• No child pursuing elementary education shall be held back, expelled, or asked to pass a board examination.
• The RTE act 2009 offers provisions for students who dropped out of school.
• Schools are not allowed to charge any capitation fee at any step while giving admission to a child.
• All government and aided schools should create a School Management Committee composed of 75 percent members as parents or guardians.

Importance of Education

Why are 159 countries focusing on improving and providing quality education to their citizens? Since our Independence, Indian governments have worked on various educational policies and financial interventions. Education is a key concern for all political parties, NGOs and society. But why? Let us find out.

• Education provides opportunities for career development and stability in life .
• A college degree and knowledge of your subjects increase your chances of getting higher-paying jobs resulting in financial security .
• Access to quality education reduces the gaps between social classes and uplifts the marginalized sections of society.
• Education reduces crime and makes our society more peaceful as educated individuals are less likely to participate in criminal activities.
• Education improves critical thinking and analytical skills.
• Quality education is one of the most important tools for gaining confidence and expressing your thoughts, perspectives, feelings, or ideas.

Impact of Right to Education Act 2009 on India Education System

Increase in Enrolment in the Upper Primary Levels The Right to Education act is responsible for increasing the enrolment rate in classes 6 to 8, also known as upper primary classes. As per the data published by the District Information System of Education, between 2009 and 2016, students enrolling in upper primary classes increased by 19.4 percent.

Table 1: Percentage increase in enrolment in the upper primary levels

Source: District Information System of Education

Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan show a steady increase in enrolment numbers in upper primary grades.

However, the enrolment numbers for the same are on a downward trend for Madhya Pradesh, Assam and West Bengal

Table 2b: Percentage Decrease in Enrolment of Students in the Upper Primary Section(2014-2016, Bottom Three States)

Improved Infrastructure Norms

The RTE Act Section 19 clearly specifies these norms:

• Maintain a teacher–student ratio of 1:30.
• All recognized schools must have ramps for students with disabilities.
• Clean drinking water facilities on the school premises.
• Playground for students.

According to the data published by the District Information System of Education, only 13% of all schools are fully equipped to comply with the RTE norms.

The lack of funds and poor management are the two major challenges that need to be resolved quickly. School administrators need to make the best use of the available resources, especially in the rural areas.

25% Quota under the Right to Education Act

One of the primary goals of the RTE Act 2009 is to ensure that every child in India, irrespective of their caste, creed, gender and socioeconomic status, gets a quality education. We have moved from policy-level decisions to creating an environment that promotes education as a fundamental right and a legal obligation of states.

RTE Act 2009 Section 12(1)(c) states that all schools must reserve at least 25% of their seats for children from marginalized and financially backward sections of society.

25-percent reservation strives for social integration of economically weaker sections (EWS) and disadvantaged groups (DG). The school premises should be a neutral place that welcomes all children to learn and grow together.

The central government reimburses the schools for all students that get admission because of the 25% quota.

State-wise variations in the number of admissions under the RTE Act 2009 Section 12(1)(c) are still a big hurdle. For example, Madhya Pradesh filled 88.2 percent of the quota seats while Andhra Pradesh could only fill 0.21 percent. The disparity in the numbers is due to variable state budgets, policy interventions, families’ socioeconomic status, awareness and ease of the process.

“For instance, in 2013-14, Madhya Pradesh had a fill rate of 88.2 percent and Rajasthan’s stood at 69.3 percent. The performance of these two states was in stark contrast to that of Uttar Pradesh, for example, which had a fill rate of 3.62 percent, and Andhra Pradesh with 0.21 percent.”

Criticism of the RTE Act 2009

• Discrimination towards parents and students who belong to the economically weaker sections (EWS) and disadvantaged groups (DG).
• Students have a hard time blending in with other students.
• Lack of confidence in government schools
• Local authorities cannot keep track of children who can benefit from the RTE Act 2009 Section 12(1)(c), and therefore they cannot seek out children for admission.
• First-generation students are unable to out the form and miss out on admissions. For example, nearly 33% of applications submitted in Gujarat for admissions under the RTE act were incomplete or inaccurate.
• Private schools deny admissions as they do not get reimbursed on time.
• Some parents were asked to pay for the application or donate money for the admissions.
• Delays in the admissions process result in students dropping out of the program or not getting admission on time.

Other Significant Government Policies that have shaped Indian Education System

• 1950 Constitutional Mandate
• National Policy of Education 1986
• Shri Unnikrishnan judgment 1993
• Mid-day Meal Scheme 1995
• Education Ministers’ Resolve 1998
• Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) 2001

The Right to Education Act is one of the most important reforms in the Indian education system and it has a cascading effect on students’ lives. But a number of cities, villages and towns are still lacking in implementation and management processes. While we can see an increase in the number of admissions in schools under the RTE act, learning outcomes are on a decline.

See the image below to understand the difference in learning outcomes pre and post Right to Education Act. Note: The results shown below are averages of the data of various sampled districts.

Check the image below for more insights:

Another area of concern is the number of girls completing their secondary and higher secondary education. Here are some alarming statistics that show how serious the situation is when it comes to girls’ education in our country :

• 1.6 million girls never get the opportunity to study in a school.
• 57% of girls drop out of school before passing the 12th standard.
• Only 10.35% of girls from the ST caste complete their elementary education. This percentage goes down to 6.8% for higher secondary education.

How can you help?

At CARE India, we work with marginalized women and girls , improving their participation in the education ecosystem. We strive towards building a society that is tolerant, educated, free of poverty and treats people with dignity.

Our Girls’ Education Program (GEP) is working towards improving girls’ education and the overall development of the education system. If you want to become a part of our initiative, you can donate to CARE India.

FAQs about Right To Education Act

The Right to Education (RTE) Act ensures free and compulsory education for all children between the age of 6 years and 14 years.

RTE 2009 act has 38 sections.

The student’s age must be between 6 years to 14 years and must be a domicile of India. 25% of the seats are reserved for economically weaker sections (EWS) and disadvantaged groups (DG).

The RTE Act came into effect on 1 April 2010, making education a fundamental right.

According to the RTE quota, 25-percent seats in recognized schools are reserved for economically weaker sections (EWS) and disadvantaged groups (DG)

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Exploring the Right to Education Act 2009

Right to Education Act 2009

Education, often hailed as the cornerstone of progress and development, is a fundamental right that paves the way for individuals to realize their potential and contribute meaningfully to society. Recognizing the significance of education, the Right to Education Act 2009 (RTE Act) was enacted, ushering in a new era of access and opportunity for every child in India. This comprehensive legislation, backed by the 86th Constitutional Amendment, aims to transform education from a privilege to an inclusive and empowering right.

Article 21A:  Right to Education

At the heart of the Right to Education Act 2009 lies Article 21A of the Indian Constitution. Enacted through the 86th Constitutional Amendment, Article 21A declares that “The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years in such manner as the State may, by law, determine.” This pivotal amendment elevated the right to education from a directive principle to a justiciable fundamental right, underscoring the commitment of the Indian government to provide quality education to every child, regardless of their socio-economic background.

All About Right to Education Act

The 86th Amendment to the Indian Constitution, enacted in 2002, introduced Article 21-A, establishing the right to free and compulsory education for children aged six to fourteen as a Fundamental Right. This right is to be implemented according to the laws set by the State. Subsequently, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act of 2009, which is in line with Article 21-A, guarantees every child the entitlement to adequate and fair-quality elementary education in a formal school.

Article 21-A and the Right to Education Act

Both Article 21-A and the RTE Act came into force on April 1, 2010. The RTE Act explicitly incorporates the concepts of ‘free’ and ‘compulsory’. ‘Free education’ denotes that no child, except for those attending schools not supported by the government, will be required to pay fees or expenses that hinder their ability to receive elementary education.

On the other hand, ‘compulsory education’ places an obligation on the government and local authorities to ensure that all children aged six to fourteen are enrolled, attending, and completing their elementary education. This marks a shift in India towards a rights-based framework that legally binds both Central and State Governments to uphold the fundamental right outlined in Article 21-A and the RTE Act.

Key provisions of Right to Education Act 2009

Key provisions of the RTE Act include:

1. The right of children to receive free and mandatory education until the completion of elementary schooling in a nearby school.

2. An explanation that ‘compulsory education’ means the government is obliged to provide free elementary education and ensure that every child in the six to fourteen age group is enrolled, attending, and completing their education. ‘Free’ in this context implies that no child can be charged fees or expenses that hinder their access to elementary education.

3. The provision for enrolling children not currently attending school into an age-appropriate class.

4. Stipulations regarding the responsibilities of appropriate governments, local authorities, and parents in delivering free and mandatory education. Additionally, it outlines the sharing of financial and other responsibilities between Central and State Governments.

5. Establishment of standards for Pupil Teacher Ratios (PTRs), school infrastructure, working days, and teacher working hours.

6. Ensuring an equitable distribution of teachers by maintaining specified pupil-teacher ratios for each school, thereby preventing imbalances in urban and rural teacher allocation. The Act also prohibits teachers from being used for non-educational tasks, except during decennial census, elections, and disaster relief efforts.

7. Requirement for qualified teachers with the necessary entry and academic qualifications.

8. Prohibition of practices such as physical punishment, mental harassment, admissions screening procedures, capitation fees, private tuition by teachers, and operating schools without recognition.

9. The development of a curriculum aligned with constitutional values, fostering holistic child development, utilizing a child-friendly and child-centered approach to learning, and aiming to eliminate fear, trauma, and anxiety among students.

Objectives of the Right to Education Act

The Right to Education Act 2009, also known as RTE Act, encompasses a range of provisions aimed at fostering an inclusive and equitable educational landscape:

• Free and Compulsory Education: The RTE Act ensures that every child between the ages of six and fourteen years has the right to free and compulsory education. It abolishes any form of direct or indirect fees that could impede a child’s access to education.
• Quality and Equity: The Act emphasizes the importance of quality education by setting standards for infrastructure, teacher-student ratios, and learning outcomes. It places a special focus on children from marginalized communities, ensuring that they receive equal opportunities.
• Reservation of Seats: The RTE Act mandates that private schools must reserve a percentage of seats for children from economically weaker sections and disadvantaged communities. This step promotes social integration and inclusivity.
• No Discrimination: Schools are prohibited from subjecting children to discrimination on various grounds, ensuring that all students are treated equally and provided with a conducive learning environment.
• Teacher Qualifications: The Act lays down qualifications for teachers, emphasizing the need for trained and qualified educators to deliver effective instruction.

Challenges and Progress of Right to Education

While the Right to Education Act marks a significant leap towards universal education, challenges persist. Ensuring quality education, reducing dropout rates, and improving learning outcomes remain key areas of focus. Additionally, issues such as inadequate infrastructure, teacher shortages, and unequal access to education in remote areas warrant attention.

Nonetheless, the RTE Act has achieved several milestones since its enactment. Increased enrollment rates, a decline in out-of-school children, and the implementation of innovative teaching methods indicate progress. The Act’s impact resonates through improved literacy rates and greater awareness of the right to education among parents and communities.

Right to Education: Empowering the Future 

The Right to Education Act 2009 is not just a legal framework; it is a transformative force that empowers individuals and shapes the nation’s future. By ensuring that every child receives quality education, irrespective of their social or economic background, the Act paves the way for a more inclusive, knowledgeable, and progressive society.

As India strides forward, the realization of the Right to Education Act’s objectives will depend on collaborative efforts between the government, educational institutions, civil society, and communities. Through these collective endeavors, the Act’s vision of an educated, empowered, and equitable India can be fully realized, propelling the nation toward new heights of growth and development.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the main features of right to education act 2009, what is right to education act 2009 section 1, what is the conclusion of rte act 2009, in which year rte act 2009 was first implemented.

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Right to Education Act (RTE) - Indian Polity Notes

The Right to Education Act (RTE) is important legislation that marks a watershed in the education system in India. With its enactment, the right to education has become a fundamental right in the country. In this article, you can read all about the RTE, its significance, provisions and challenges for the UPSC exam .

Read about important acts in India in the linked article.

Right to Education Act

The Act is completely titled “the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act” . It was passed by the Parliament in August 2009. When the Act came into force in 2010, India became one among 135 countries where education is a fundamental right of every child.

• “The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of 6 to 14 years in such manner as the State, may by law determine.”
• As per this, the right to education was made a fundamental right and removed from the list of Directive Principles of State Policy.
• The RTE is the consequential legislation envisaged under the 86th Amendment.
• The article incorporates the word “free” in its title. What it means is that no child (other than those admitted by his/her parents in a school not supported by the government) is liable to pay any kind of fee or charges or expenses which may prevent him or her from pursuing and completing elementary education.
• This Act makes it obligatory on the part of the government to ensure admission, attendance and completion of elementary education by all children falling in the age bracket six to fourteen years.
• Essentially, this Act ensures free elementary education to all children in the economically weaker sections of society.

A few important articles that a candidate must read to cover the notes on the topic, ‘Education,’ comprehensively are linked below:

RTE Provisions

The provisions of the RTE Act are briefly described below. The Act provides for:

• The right of free and compulsory education to children until they complete their elementary education in a school in the neighbourhood.
• The Act makes it clear that ‘compulsory education’ implies that it is an obligation on the part of the government to ensure the admission, attendance and completion of elementary education of children between the ages of six and fourteen. The word ‘free’ indicates that no charge is payable by the child which may prevent him/her from completing such education.
• The Act provides for the admission of a non-admitted child to a class of his/her appropriate age.
• It mentions the duties of the respective governments, the local authorities and parents in ensuring the education of a child. It also specifies the sharing of the financial burden between the central and the state governments.
• It specifies standards and norms for Pupil Teacher Ratios (PTR), infrastructure and buildings, working days of the school and for the teachers.
• It also says there should be no urban-rural imbalance in teacher postings. The Act also provides for the prohibition of the employment of teachers for non-educational work, other than census, elections and disaster relief work.
• The Act provides that the teachers appointed should be appropriately trained and qualified.
• Mental harassment and physical punishment.
• Screening procedures for the admission of children.
• Capitation fees.
• Private tuition by the teachers.
• Running schools with no recognition.
• The Act envisages that the curriculum should be developed in coherence with the values enshrined in the Indian Constitution, and that which would take care of the all-round development of the child. The curriculum should build on the knowledge of the child, on his/her potentiality and talents, help make the child free of trauma, fear and anxiety via a system that is both child-centric and child-friendly.

Significance of RTE

With the passing of the Right to Education Act, India has moved to a rights-based approach towards implementing education for all. This Act casts a legal obligation on the state and central governments to execute the fundamental rights of a child (as per Article 21 A of the Constitution). 

• The Act lays down specific standards for the student-teacher ratio, which is a very important concept in providing quality education.
• It also talks about providing separate toilet facilities for girls and boys, having adequate standards for classroom conditions, drinking water facilities, etc.
• The stress on avoiding the urban-rural imbalance in teachers’ posting is important as there is a big gap in the quality and numbers regarding education in the villages compared to the urban areas in the country.
• The Act provides for zero tolerance against the harassment and discrimination of children. The prohibition of screening procedures for admission ensures that there would be no discrimination of children on the basis of caste, religion, gender, etc.
• The Act also mandates that no kid is detained until class 8. It introduced the Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) system in 2009 to have grade-appropriate learning outcomes in schools.
• The Act also provides for the formation of a School Management Committee (SMC) in every school in order to promote participatory democracy and governance in all elementary schools. These committees have the authority to monitor the school’s functioning and prepare developmental plans for it.
• The Act is justiciable and has a Grievance Redressal mechanism that permits people to take action when the provisions of the Act are not complied with.
• This provision is included in Section 12(1)(c) of the RTE Act. All schools (private, unaided, aided or special category) must reserve 25% of their seats at the entry level for students from the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and disadvantaged groups.
• When the rough version of the Act was drafted in 2005, there was a lot of outcry in the country against this large percentage of seats being reserved for the underprivileged. However, the framers of the draft stood their ground and were able to justify the 25% reservation in private schools.
• This provision is a far-reaching move and perhaps the most important step in so far as inclusive education is concerned.
• This provision seeks to achieve social integration.
• The loss incurred by the schools as a result of this would be reimbursed by the central government.
• The Act has increased enrolment in the upper primary level (Class 6-8) between 2009 and 2016 by 19.4%.
• In rural areas, in 2016, only 3.3% of children in the 6 – 14 years bracket were out of school.

Criticism of RTE Act

Even though the RTE Act is a step in the right direction towards the achievement of making education truly free and compulsory in India, it has met with several criticisms. Some of the criticisms are given below:

• The Act was drafted hastily without much thought or consultation being given to the quality of education imparted.
• Children below 6 years are not covered under the Act.
• Many of the schemes under the Act have been compared to the previous schemes on education such as the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, and have been plagued with corruption charges and inefficiency.
• At the time of admissions, many documents such as birth certificate, BPL certificate, etc. are required. This move seems to have left out orphans from being beneficiaries of the Act.
• There have been implementational hurdles in the 25% reservation of seats for EWS and others in private schools. Some of the challenges in this regard are discriminatory behaviour towards parents and difficulties experienced by students to fit in with a different socio-cultural milieu.
• In case a student fails in the annual exam, he/she is given extra training and made to appear for a re-exam. If this re-exam is not passed, the student can be detained in the class. 
• This amendment was made after many states complained that without regular exams, the learning levels of children could not be evaluated effectively. 
• The states which were against this amendment were six states with higher learning outcomes due to their effective implementation of the CCE system as mandated in the Act. (The six states were Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Goa, Telangana and Maharashtra.)
• It has been found that many states find it difficult to move to the CCE system of assessment. This is chiefly due to a lack of teachers’ training and orientation.
• Another criticism levelled against the Act is that instead of increasing the standards and outcomes of the public education system in India, it passes the buck to private schools with some respect.

Making the right to education a fundamental right took more than 6 decades after independence. Now, the government and all stakeholders should focus on the quality of education, and gradually move towards having a single educational system and platform across the country for all sections of society to foster equality, inclusion, and unity.

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Right to Education Act (RTE) – Indian Polity:- Download PDF Here

UPSC Questions related to the Right to Education Act (RTE)

What are the basic features of right to education act.

Some of the basic features of the RTE are:

• Free and compulsory education for all children in the age group 6 to 14.
• There will not be any detention or examination until elementary education is completed. However, there has been an amendment to this (as mentioned above in the criticisms of the Act).
• This makes providing education a legal obligation of the governments.
• It also makes it mandatory for all private schools to reserve 25% of their seats for the EWS and disadvantaged groups.

What is the age limit for RTE?

All children between the ages of 6 and 14 have the right to free education under the provisions of the Act.

What is Article 21 of the Constitution?

Article 21 deals with the right to life and personal liberty. It is a fundamental right. To know more click on Right to Life (Article 21) – Indian Polity Notes .

What is the importance of the right to education?

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On the political economy of compulsory education

• Open access
• Published: 24 March 2021
• Volume 134 , pages 1–25, ( 2021 )

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• Alessandro Balestrino   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5841-1588 1 , 2 ,
• Lisa Grazzini 3 &
• Annalisa Luporini 2 , 3  

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We consider an economy with two categories of agents: entrepreneurs and workers. In laissez-faire , the former gain from having their children educated, while the latter, although they may profit from their own education, have no interest in sending their children to school. We first characterise the preferred education policy-cum-redistributive taxation for the two groups, and find that entrepreneurs favour a compulsory education policy while workers prefer a purely redistributive taxation. Each group would like the policy to be entirely financed by the other group. Then, we introduce a political process with probabilistic voting and verify that an equilibrium with both a compulsory education policy and some redistribution may exist in which the workers are constrained but the entrepreneurs, who benefit from hiring educated workers, are not. The redistribution compensates the workers for being constrained by the education policy.

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1 Introduction

It is an historical fact that education policy was conceived in terms of free and mandatory public schooling (financed by public funds) when it was introduced in the West (Germany, France and later UK and US); and free and mandatory schooling is still at the basis of the Western educational systems today. Several motives have been identified for the introduction of compulsory education (Fyfe 2005 ). In Prussia, where such a system was first introduced in 1763, the protestant religious motive seem to have prevailed (on this see also Becker and Woessmann 2010 ). In France and Italy compulsory education laws, dating back to 1881 and 1861 respectively, are mainly seen as a part of the construction of a national state (see also Cipolla 1969 ). In Japan, it was the desire for modernisation that drove the introduction of mandatory schooling after the opening to the West in 1886. Also the UK and the US, by far the most industrialized countries at the time, passed compulsory education laws at the end of the XIX century (1880 in the UK, from 1885 to 1918, depending on the States, in the US); this slight delay might come as a surprise, but a possible reason for it has been identified in the need for cheap child labour—for example, Galor ( 2006 ) suggests that education was made compulsory only when a literate workforce was needed because of technological progress. In that case, parents who may profit from their children’s labour or contribution to home production (Balestrino et al. 2017 ; Cigno 2013 ) may have to be forced to send their kids to school. As far as the US are concerned, Bandiera et al. ( 2018 ) also stress a nation-building motive aimed at instilling civic values to migrants during the “Age of Mass Migration” going from 1850 to 1914—an attempt at building social capital, one might say. Footnote 1

Initially, the length of mandatory schooling and the enforcement of the attendance prescriptions were relatively limited, especially in South European countries, and generally in the countryside where children were seasonally employed in agriculture. After World War II, there has been a steady increase in the length of compulsory education in Western countries. Murtin and Viarengo ( 2011 ) show that there has been a strong convergence in the length of mandatory schooling in fifteen western European countries during the period from 1950 to 2000. At the end of the 1930s, the years of compulsory education ranged from three in Portugal to nine in the UK. After the reforms that occurred in the second half of the XX century, the range was reduced to nine-twelve years. According to Murtin and Viarengo ( 2011 ), this convergence is to be traced to the decreasing returns to educational investments, and to the related fact that all countries had reached approximately the same level of profitability. Nowadays, this convergence is further reinforced by globalisation. Higher competitivity in the global markets can only be faced with a more educated workforce.

In developing countries, however, public and free education is not always guaranteed and thus compulsory education is still an issue today, despite its being one of the main prerequisites not only for economic development but also for democratization and human rights (as an object in itself and as a primary tool in the fight against child labour). Elementary education should be made compulsory according to art. 26 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and such principle has been reaffirmed in a number of conventions and treaties up to Goal 4 of the UNDP Sustainable Development Goals, which calls for achieving inclusive and quality education for all, and more specifically “ensures that all girls and boys complete free primary and secondary schooling by 2030”.

The two motives behind the establishment of compulsory education that we mentioned before, industrialization and generally productivity needs on the one side and nation-building on the other side, are of course not necessarily conflicting with each other. However, when we consider the expansion of compulsory education that took place in Europe after the Second World War, we pointed out above that the productivity motive may have been the main pushing factor. Footnote 2

For these reasons, we focus on the productivity motive, and therefore build a model in which center stage is taken by the actors of the industrial world, entrepreneurs and workers. Footnote 3 Also, we adopt a positive, rather than a normative, viewpoint. It is of course always possible to argue in favour of compulsory education in normative terms, e.g. because of horizontal equity requirements (Balestrino et al. 2017 ). However, normative desirability is not enough to explain why compulsory schooling has become an indispensable part of the modern educational policy package. If we take the political economy view that policies are designed according to voters’ preferences by office- or policy-motivated politicians, then it follows that someone’s interests must be furthered by the presence of a mandatory education period. What we require, therefore, is an argument showing that education policy is likely to be part of a winning policy scheme in a political context. Footnote 4

Specifically, we investigate the question whether there might be a social group who is interested in introducing compulsory schooling as part of the equilibrium policy and is endowed with sufficient political power to actually do so. Footnote 5 In our model, as we said, agents are classified into two occupational groups, entrepreneurs and workers. One of the implications of such a division of society is that entrepreneurs have a stronger interest in education policy than workers. The rationale for this is not that entrepreneurs want their children to be well-educated, because they will tend to provide the required education anyway; the point is that they want the children of their workers to be educated , in order to enjoy a better work-force one generation ahead. For this reason, entrepreneurs favour compulsory schooling, financed by the tax system; such a scheme should then prevail at the political equilibrium if the entrepreneurs are able to impose their preferred policy.

Notice also that the fact that in our model both entrepreneurs and workers have a say on education policy through their voting behaviour is consistent with our focus on the productivity factor, which we saw is presumably the main one behind the more recent introductions or expansions of the compulsory education system. Indeed, universal suffrage was not present in the countries where compulsory education was first introduced (see above): due to their low education and income levels, at the time workers did not have the right to vote. Footnote 6

Additionally, we may remark that the phenomenon of “industrial paternalism” provides some indirect evidence of the fact that entrepreneurs have in the course of history cared for their workers’ education. Industrial paternalism entailed, by and large, the provision on the entrepreneurs’ part of basic health and education services to their workers. This covers a period ranging roughly from 1860 to 1950 and is quite common across different places and cultures: we have examples in Europe (France: Reid 1985 ; Italy: Ciuffetti 2004 ; Finland: Fellman 2019 ; UK: Dellheim 1987 ), in Asia (Japan: Tsutsui 1997 ), in Africa (Belgian Congo, now Democratic Republic of the Congo: Juif 2019 ) as well as in the US (Tone 1997 ). It may be difficult to say what the main rationale for this might have been, possibly a host of different motives (many of which are studied in the references above), but it is undeniable that having a minimally healthy and educated workforce tends to increase productivity – see also fn. 2 and fn. 3. Indeed, it is an established stylised fact that the children of educated parents are more likely to acquire an education (see e.g. Checchi 2005 and the references therein): then, it is plausible to conceive of the entrepreneurs as aware of the potential impact of education on productivity because they see the effects of education on themselves and their children. Instead, workers, not experiencing education first-hand, are less likely to know it as an investment for their children and may easily end up in a vicious circle whereby, generation after generation, they prevent their own offspring from reaping the benefits of having an education. Footnote 7 These are the main reasons why we regard the interpretation of the emergence of compulsory education as a response to productivity requirements as more convincing than alternative explanations such as those based on the presence of a majority of poor workers caring for their children’s welfare and voting for an education system financed by a tax on rich entrepreneurs. Note, however, that the two explanations are not contradictory and that some altruism on the part of the workers may reinforce the effects of the productivity argument.

The paper is structured as follows. Section  2 presents the model and illustrates the nature of the free-market equilibrium, while Sect.  3 introduces the policy instruments and discusses the policy preferences of the agents. Section  4 expounds the political equilibrium achieved via a probabilistic voting process. Finally, Sect.  5 concludes.

2 The model

We consider an overlapping generations economy in which agents live three periods, \(i =0 ,1 ,2.\) In period 0, however, an agent has only a passive role: she receives an education and supplies the time not absorbed by the educational process for the production of a domestically produced service. We refer to agents in period 0 as “children”, in period 1 as “young adults” and in period 2 as “mature adults”. The latter two are the periods where economically relevant decisions are taken and carried out. Agents cease to exist at the end of period 2. For our purposes, then, there are two economically active generations that overlap at each time of the economy, young adults, y , and mature adults, m .

Agents live in households, each made of one parent and one child; in turn, this child will grow up to become a parent; and so on and so forth. There are two social groups, entrepreneurs and workers, who perpetuate themselves generation after generation (no interclass mobility). Footnote 8 Kids are born in period 1, when parents are young adults; in the same period, each parent decides how much education her child should receive. Education requires a money input (out-of-pocket expenditure) as well as a time input (opportunity cost); the time that the kid does not spend in education is combined with the parent’s time and employed to provide a household public good. Notice that it is important to characterize the educational process in such a way that the kid’s time allocation is explicitly accounted for: indeed, it is exactly because parents may wish to rely on their children’s time for the provision of the household public good that they may also wish to reduce or ban altogether school’s attendance. Footnote 9 This is why we model monetary expenditures and time employment as separate inputs in the children’s education.

2.1 Incomes and preferences

There are n entrepreneurs ( n /2 young and n /2 mature adults) resulting in n /2 firms. Entrepreneurs’ incomes are given by the profits generated by the firms they own. The ownership structure is thus specified: each young adult entrepreneur co-owns the firm with her parent, and they share the profits; one period ahead, the same agent, now a mature adult, will share ownership and earnings with her own child (again, this is just for simplicity, and without loss of generality). Monetary earnings are not the only objective of an entrepreneur who also cares about his reputation as a successful manager of the firm. Since the actions of the entrepreneur display part of their effect after the latter’s death, we assume that the entrepreneur will take it into account when making her decisions.

Each firm produces a share of the only good that exists in the economy, whose price is unity. Labour is the only (variable) input and there are constant returns to scale. Each worker supplies a fixed amount of labour, the same for all, and produces \(y^{i} =\underline{y} +y \left( e_{\omega }^{t} ,d_{\omega }^{t}\right)\) units of the good in each productive period ( \(i =1 ,2\) ), where \(\underline{y}\) is the minimum level of production by an uneducated worker, \(e_{\omega }^{t}\) represents the amount of educational expenditure bestowed upon, and \(d_{\omega }^{t}\) denotes the time spent in education by a worker of generation t in period 0 (the total time available is normalized to 1, so that \(1 -d_{\omega }^{t}\) is the time devoted to the production of the household public good). \(y ( \cdot )\) is an increasing and strictly concave function satisfying

that is, both inputs into the educational process are essential in order to produce more than the minimum level, \(\underline{y}\) , and they exhibit technological complementarity: the more time you spend in education, the more effective is the money you spend on it and viceversa (for example, if a kid goes to a high-quality school costing more money, this should make the time spent in education more profitable). Footnote 10 The agent’s non-working time, which is clearly also fixed, is employed in the production of a household public good.

Workers and entrepreneurs bargain over the sharing of output \(y^{i} =\underline{y} +y \left( e_{\omega }^{t} ,d_{\omega }^{t}\right)\) . Let \(\mu\) be the index of the power of the entrepreneurs and \((1 -\mu )\) the index of that of the workers, with \(\mu >0.5\) , i.e. entrepreneurs have higher bargaining power than workers. Each firm incurs in bargaining costs that are increasing in the number of workers. We assume that such costs increase in a discontinuous way (for example because at some point a further increase in the number of employees requires an additional person to carry on the bargaining effort) implying that each firm, anticipating correctly its bargaining costs, employs a fixed number of workers that represents the equilibrium profit-maximizing level of employment. Footnote 11 We denote such level of employment by 2 s , \(s \ge 1\) , where s is both the number of young adult and that of mature adult workers. Footnote 12 Given that there are n /2 firms we globally have \(S =s n \ge n\) employed workers.

The objective of the entrepreneurs is to maximize their share of per-period profit \(\underline{y} +y \left( e_{\omega }^{t} ,d_{\omega }^{t}\right) -w_{\omega }^{i t} -C\) where \(w_{\omega }^{i t}\) represents the per-period wage,and C is the per-worker bargaining cost; while the objective of a worker is to maximize \(w_{\omega }^{i t}\) . We assume (generalized) Nash bargaining and posit i) that the bargaining costs are sunk, because they are borne independently of the bargaining outcome and ii) that bargaining occurs before production costs are incurred: then, the disagreement point is \(( -C ,0)\) Footnote 13 and the wage level will result from the solution of

which yields

Assuming a perfect credit market with zero interest rate, a worker thus earns lifetime income

The per-worker profit in each period will be

Each entrepreneur earns lifetime income

where the subscript \(\eta\) denotes a variable pertaining to an entrepreneur. The lifetime income is given by the sum of the entrepreneur incomes in period 1 and 2, \(w_{\eta }^{1 ,t}\) and \(w_{\eta }^{2 ,t}\) , where

and where \(\alpha\) \(\left( 1 -\alpha \right)\) is the share of earning accruing to a young (mature) adult; \(g ( \cdot )\) is an increasing and concave function converting, for both co-owners of the firm and in each period, the educational inputs received into income—such a function might therefore represent the returns to entrepreneurial ability as mediated by the investments in human capital. Mirroring the preceding assumptions on \(y ( \cdot )\) , we posit

so that both educational expenditure and time spent in education are essential to develop entrepreneurial ability and the two inputs exhibit technological complementarity.

Also mirroring the assumptions made on the workers’ time allocation, we assume that each entrepreneur supplies a fixed amount of time for management, the same for all, and that the remaining fixed leisure time is employed along with the kid’s non-educational time to produce a household public good.

As a final remark, we notice that, given \(\mu\) \(>0.5\) , ( 3 ) and ( 5 ) imply that the worker’s lifetime income is lower than the entrepreneur’s lifetime income:

Turning now to the agents’ preferences, we assume that all agents are selfish. Footnote 14 Neither the workers nor the entrepreneurs derive any direct utility from their children’s education. However, while workers do not derive any indirect utility either, young entrepreneurs derive an indirect advantage from investing in their own children’s education because this positively affects next-period profits—see ( 7 ). Moreover, mature entrepreneurs exhibit a concern for their firm’s future profitability, a “reputational effect”. We choose to focus on this specific element due to our interest in the productivity/industrialisation rationale for educational policy: to keep things simple, we ignore other possible variants like assuming that the parents take pride in their offspring’s education or are worried about the effect of the children’s homework. The impact of the reputational effect on the agents’ voting preferences is discussed in Sect.  4 , where it is made clear that the introduction of such an effect brings about only qualitative changes in the results and that nothing of substance is modified.

Therefore, the workers’ utility function is

where \(f ( \cdot )\) represents the utility from the production of the household public good that we mentioned above. Since the parent’s leisure is fixed, however, we write the sub-utility directly as a function of the kid’s domestic time only, with the provision that \(f \left( 0\right) >0\) —i.e. that only parental time is essential to the production of the household public good.

As to the utility function of the entrepreneurs, it still depends on consumption and on the provision of the household public good. Moreover, we capture the reputational effect by directly introducing a fraction \(\beta\) , \(0<\beta <1\) , of future profits in the utility function:

is the profit generated in the period following the death of the entrepreneur.

We start by describing the laissez-faire economy; government interventions will be considered later on.

2.2 Agent optimisation in a free market

Each worker maximises ( 10 ) by choosing her consumption basket and the composition of her kid’s educational process subject to her lifetime budget constraint

and her child time constraint

plus non-negativity constraints for all the choice variables. Since the educational expenditure for the next generation \(e_{\omega }^{t +1}\) does not appear in the utility function, and the time spent by children in education \(d_{\omega }^{t +1}\) appears as a bad, it is clear that \(e_{\omega }^{t +1} =d_{\omega }^{t +1} =0\) at the optimum for all workers of all generations. Thus, the problem reduces to

where the budget constraint ( 13 ) has been substituted into the utility function. The FOC w.r.t. \(c_{\omega }^{1 ,t}\) is, quite simply,

Workers smooth their consumption over time. Since no worker gains from sending her child to school, however, the workers never get an education.

As for the entrepreneurs, they maximise ( 11 ) subject to their lifetime budget constraint

and their time constraint

Letting \(\lambda\) denote the Lagrange multiplier for the budget constraint, the FOCs w.r.t. \(c_{\eta }^{1 ,t}\) , \(c_{\eta }^{2 ,t}\) , \(e_{\eta }^{t +1}\) , and \(d_{\eta }^{t +1}\) are

respectively, so that the budget allocation is ruled by

Again, consumption will be smoothed over the two periods; however, as far as the entrepreneurs are concerned, each of them gains from having her kid educated, because in the next two periods that kid will own part of the firm, and will contribute her managerial skills to the production process and thus first to the earnings and then to the reputation of the entrepreneur. Therefore, children belonging to this class are educated, and might indeed go to school full-time \((d_{\eta }^{t +1} =1)\) . Notice that the reputational effect ( \(\beta >0\) ) raises the levels of \(e_{\eta }^{t +1}\) and \(d_{\eta }^{t +1}\) but is not necessary for the entrepreneurs to educate their children.

2.3 Characteristics of the free market equilibrium

In the laissez-faire equilibrium, some agents (the entrepreneurs) educate their children while others (the workers) don’t. Notice that the reason why workers are not educated is that educational expenses must be paid by the parent, but the latter does not obtain any return from her child’s education. Not only, but the time devoted to education is subtracted from the production of the household public good. The entrepreneurs, on the contrary, in addition to the gain they get from educating their children, may also take advantage from having an educated work force. This may open the way for policies that oblige parents to send their kids to school.

3 Agent optimisation and policy preferences

In order to investigate whether a compulsory public education policy could gain the support of the majority of voters, we must first assess whether such a measure can actually improve the welfare either of the entrepreneurs, or of the workers or of both categories. As far as the policy tools are concerned, we consider a compulsory education package and a linear income tax/subsidy to be employed both for financing such education measures and for redistributive purposes. We let \(\tau _{\omega }\) and \(\tau _{\eta }\) denote the group-specific marginal income tax rates for workers and entrepreneurs, respectively (possibly negative), Footnote 15 while \(\overline{e}\) represents the minimum expenditure on a child’s education that is imposed upon households and \(\overline{d}\) the minimum amount of time that a child must spend in school. Consequently e and d will now represent the amounts of money and time that are freely allocated to education by households on top of the prescribed levels. Notice that, since the time allocation for the parent is fixed, \(\tau _{\omega }\) and \(\tau _{\eta }\) are not distortionary, and basically equivalent to lump-sum transfers.

3.1 Agent optimisation in the presence of an active policy

Let’s take the workers. Taking into account ( 2 ) and the education policy described above, a worker per-period after tax income obtains as

Further, the worker budget constraint ( 13 ) becomes

where \(\overline{e}\) appears on both sides of the constraint because the policy is publicly financed (either each household receives a subsidy or monetary educational expenses are paid by the government). The time constraint of worker’s child ( 14 ) becomes

Just as in the free-market equilibrium, the additional education expenditure for children \(e_{\omega }^{t +1}\) does not appear in the utility function, and the additional time spent by children in education \(d_{\omega }^{t +1}\) appears as a bad, therefore \(e_{\omega }^{t +1} =d_{\omega }^{t +1} =0\) at the optimum for all workers of all generations. Thus, a worker’s maximization problem reduces to

The FOC w.r.t. \(c_{\omega }^{1 ,t}\) obtains as

i.e. it has the same form as the FOC ( 16 ) obtained in a free market , leading again to consumption smoothing. But now the worker is obliged to have the kid spend \(\overline{d}\) as study time. The worker will also spend \(\overline{e}\) on her child’s education but this would be financed by the tax system.

Let us now consider the entrepreneurs: the entrepreneur’s budget constraint ( 17 ) becomes

Since \(e_{\omega }^{t} =d_{\omega }^{t} =0\) for the reasons given above, we have from ( 6 ) and ( 7 ) that the entrepreneur’s income in period 1, 2, and 3 obtain as follows

Entrepreneurs maximise their utility function

by choice of \(c_{\eta }^{1 ,t} ,~c_{\eta }^{2 ,t} ,~e_{\eta }^{t +1}\) and \(d_{\eta }^{t +1}\) subject to the budget constraint ( 26 ) and the additional time constraint

Since it will become clear in the next subsection that there cannot exist a political equilibrium where both entrepreneurs and workers are constrained, we only consider interior solutions for \(e_{\eta }^{t +1}\) and \(d_{\eta }^{t +1}\) . The FOCs then are

3.2 Policy preferences

We now have to check which of the possible constellations of policy tools is preferred by the agents. Let us begin by writing the government revenue constraint under the assumption that the educational expenditure ration \(\overline{e}\) is paid for by the government:

where we dropped the arguments in \(y^{t},\) \(y^{t -1},\) \(w_{\eta }^{1 ,t}\) and \(w_{\eta }^{2 ,t -1}\) to avoid clutter. For future use, we write the public budget in per-capita terms and we express it in terms of \(\tau _{\omega } (\tau _{\eta } ,\overline{e} ,\overline{d})\) :

where \(\sigma =S/\left( n +S\right)\) and \(\Psi =(1 -\mu ) \left( 2 \underline{y} +y^{t} +y^{t -1}\right)\) . Next, by deriving \(\tau _{\omega } ( \cdot )\) with respect to \(\tau _{\eta }\) , \(\overline{e}\) , and \(\overline{d}\) we obtain

Notice that here the production function is represented as affected by the education level of the parents , \(y^{t}\) , and the grandparents , \(y^{t -1}\) , while the possible increase in education prescribed by the policy would affect the earnings of the children . Similarly the current revenue of the entrepreneurs, \(w_{\eta }^{1 ,t}\) and \(w_{\eta }^{2 ,t -1}\) , is not affected by a change in \(\overline{d}\) . This implies the following

By using ( 38 ), ( 37 ) can be re-written as

Let the indirect utility, written as a function of the policy instruments, be denoted by

where \(\eta _{y}\) denotes a young entrepreneur and \(\eta _{m}\) denotes a mature entrepreneur. The derivatives of ( 40 ) with respect to the policy instruments for the workers are

where again,

as far as the parents’ and grandparents’ income is concerned. Therefore, ( 42 ) and ( 43 ) can be re-written as

Regarding the entrepreneurs, we must distinguish between the young and the mature ones. For the young , the derivative of ( 40 ) with respect to the entrepreneur’s income tax rate obtains as

As to the derivatives with respect to the minimum expenditure on a child’s education, \(\overline{e}\) , and the minimum amount of time a child must spend in school, \(\overline{d}\) , we have

where we have considered that

because education affects only next-period profits. Notice that the per period entrepreneurs’ income is made of four terms – see ( 27 ) and ( 28 ). Since the entrepreneurs are not constrained, the compulsory education policy does not induce any change in returns to period two and three entrepreneurial activity \(\left( 1 -\alpha \right) g\) , but, given ( 4 ), it creates more income via increases in per-worker profits \(\pi ^{2 ,t}\) and \(\left( 1 -\tau _{\eta }\right) \pi ^{3 ,t}\) . This means that we can be certain that

Consequently the sign of the derivatives of ( 47 ) is positive. In fact the policy measure has no impact on the amount of time and money invested in the education of an entrepreneur’s child. The increase in the compulsory components of e and d will be counterbalanced by a reduction of the same amount in the time and money used to top up the compulsory amounts. As a consequence the entrepreneurs will benefit from the increase of the education of their work-force without incurring in any distortion of their own educational choices.

The mature entrepreneurs will incur in the cost of education without obtaining any monetary return, but obtaining instead a benefit in terms of reputation. The reputational effect, therefore, is key to make them favour an educational policy, in that it makes them care, indirectly, for the workers’ children’s education one generation ahead. Qualitatively, this works just as if we assumed that the mature entrepreneurs had become altruistic (which, as we mentioned in fn. 14 would still be compatible with our results); the interpretation as an interest in the reputation of the firm is however more in line with our basic assumptions. While helpful, it is not absolutely necessary to obtain our main result (the interest in workers’ education of the young entrepreneurs would be enough), and it allows us to show the entrepreneurs as being consistently in support of mandatory education rather than moving away from that support in old age, which seems to sit comfortably with a view of the entrepreneur as having a long-term interest in the family business.

For them, the derivatives of ( 40 ) with respect to \(\tau _{\eta }\) , \(\overline{e}\) , and \(\overline{d}\) obtain as

We are now in a position to calculate the preferred policy by each group. Specifically, the preferred policies can be found by using ( 34 ) to replace \(\tau _{\omega }\) in ( 40 ) and then choosing \(\tau _{\eta } ,~\overline{e}\) and \(\overline{d}\) so as to maximise:

for the workers and the entrepreneurs, respectively, under non-negativity constraints for \(\overline{e}\) and \(\overline{d}\) and the constraints that

For the workers, the FOCs are:

implying that the optimal tax rate is \(\tau _{\eta } =1\) while \(\overline{e}\) and \(\overline{d}\) should be optimally set to zero.

For the young entrepreneurs, the FOCs are:

The FOCs for the mature ones are instead:

We know from our previous analysis that in this case both \(\partial V_{\eta _{y}}/ \partial \overline{e}\) and \(\partial V_{\eta _{y}}/ \partial \overline{d}\) are positive because of a positive indirect effect as the compulsory education policy creates more income via increases in the after-tax per-worker next-period profits \(\left( 1 -\tau _{\eta }\right) \pi ^{2 ,t}\) —see ( 47 )—and because of the positive reputational effect. The latter is also present in the case of the mature entrepreneurs.

Therefore, the entrepreneurs would prefer to face a zero marginal tax rate while at the same time having positive values for \(\overline{e}\) and \(\overline{d}\) (indeed, entrepreneurs would always favour pushing each ration to its upper limit). This implies that the workers should face a positive tax rate in order to finance education expenditure. The upper limit for \(\overline{d}\) is clearly unity, while for \(\overline{e}\) can be deduced from observing that, given the preferred tax rates, the maximum level of \(\overline{e}\) can be achieved when \(\tau _{\omega } (\tau _{\eta } ,\overline{e} ,\overline{d}) =1,\) implying \(\overline{e} =(1 -\mu ) \left( 2 \underline{y} +y^{t} +y^{t -1}\right) \sigma\) .

While the results are possibly too sharp to be taken literally, their qualitative interpretation is clear: the workers do not perceive any benefit from compulsory education but would favour a redistributive income taxation, whereas entrepreneurs gain from compulsory education but would like to shift the entire cost on the workers.

4 Political equilibrium

Let us now focus on the voting process through which an educational policy package is chosen in the political arena. To perform our analysis, we consider a probabilistic voting model with a two-candidate electoral competition—see e.g. Lindbeck and Weibull ( 1987 ). In this setup, candidates are uncertain on whether citizens will participate in voting: they could abstain, maybe because they cannot clearly perceive the distance between the proposed platforms. Consequently, the candidates are uncertain on how citizens will vote for any given political proposal. Following a standard approach, we suppose that the voters’ decisions depend on the differences in the expected utilities from the candidates’ different platforms, and that the candidates perceive the probability that a voter will participate in voting and support a platform as a function of the distance between her own platform and that proposed by the rival candidate. Politicians are assumed to be opportunistic, i.e. they are purely office-motivated, and thus aim at maximising their vote share. No credibility issues may arise, because it is also assumed that politicians can make binding commitments to policy platforms proposed during the electoral campaign. Footnote 16

To sum up, the sketch of the electoral procedure is thus the following. Two candidates simultaneously propose their policy platforms, that is their educational policy packages plus their redistributive policy platform. Then, citizens vote for their preferred candidate. Finally, the elected candidate implements the policy she promised during the electoral campaign.

Each candidate selects her policy platform in order to maximise her share of total votes, that depends on the probabilities that each voter will vote for her, taking the rival candidate platform as given. Now, let the probability perceived by candidate \(j ,~j =A ,B\) that an agent votes for her be \(\gamma _{\iota }^{j} ,~\iota =\omega ,\eta _{y} ,\eta _{m}\) , where we distinguish between young and mature entrepreneurs because they have different policy preferences. Footnote 17 The expected vote share of a candidate will then be:

As usual, we posit

where \(\Gamma _{\iota }\) is a smooth, continuous and increasing function varying between 0 and 1, and we use the superscript j , \(j =A ,B\) , to denote a policy variable proposed by candidate j .

The assumption that agents will show up at elections with a certain positive probability is of course standard in probabilistic voting models; also standard is it to assume that this probability varies with the agent’s type and, more precisely, that each individual’s voting behaviour is affected by her own ideological attachment to a party (usually represented by an idiosyncratic taste shock which is a random variable with a density function taken to be symmetric around zero). However, we wish to highlight here a different mechanism, namely the positive relationship between income and voting participation: active participation in public life, including active voting, is indeed usually found to be positively related to income at the individual level and, relatedly, negatively associated with income inequality at the aggregate level—see for example Greene and Nikolaev ( 1999 ), Benabou ( 2000 ), and Horn ( 2011 ). Footnote 18

Therefore, we assume that the probability of an individual participating in voting is positively related to her income. In our framework, this means that the entrepreneurs are more active than workers in the voting process, i.e. their abstention probability is lower. We take it that \(\Gamma _{w} ( \Delta V_{\iota }) <\Gamma _{\eta _{k}} ( \Delta V_{\iota })\) \(k =y ,m,\) for any value of the difference in the utility from the two platforms.

Each candidate maximises ( 63 ) by choosing her own policy platform \(\tau _{\eta }^{j} ,\overline{e}^{j} ,\overline{d}^{j}\) while taking the other candidate’s platform as given; in a Nash equilibrium in which the candidates announce their policies simultaneously, the resulting equilibrium policies will be identical. As is well-known, then, the objective function of a candidate, that is ( 63 ), in a probabilistic voting model coincides with a generalised utilitarian social welfare function—see Mueller ( 2003 ).

In what follows, we will assume that for the income tax rate proposed by candidate j for entrepreneurs, \(\tau _{\eta }^{j}\) , we always have interior solutions at the political equilibrium. In other words we assume that the abstention rate of the workers (who outnumber the entrepreneurs) is such as to guarantee an interior solution. Footnote 19 As far as the education package is concerned, notice that there cannot exist an equilibrium in which both the workers and the entrepreneurs are constrained. If that were the case, one of the candidates could easily improve the outcome for both groups by simultaneously reducing the ration and the tax rates. For each candidate, the FOCs are:

where the derivatives of the indirect utility functions w.r.t. the policy parameters are given by ( 54 )–( 56 ) and ( 57 )–( 59 ).

Substituting for \(\partial V_{\omega }/ \partial \tau _{\eta }^{j}\) and \(\partial V_{\eta _{k}}/ \partial \tau _{\eta }^{j},\) \(k =y ,m,\) from the preferred policies ( 54 )–( 56 ), condition ( 65 ) becomes:

In words, the marginal tax rates are set so as to equalise the marginal utilities of income weighted by the sensitivity of the two citizen types’ vote to the candidate’s proposal at the equilibrium point, Footnote 20 that is when there is no difference in the proposed platforms (see Mueller 2003 , ch. 12). Since the candidates’ proposed policies are identical at the equilibrium, \(\tau _{\eta }^{A} =\tau _{\eta }^{B} =\tau _{\eta }\) , \(\overline{e}^{A} =\overline{e}^{B} =\overline{e}\) , and \(\overline{d}^{A} =\overline{d}^{B} =\overline{d}\) .

The intuition behind these results is the following. Let us suppose, for example, that \(\partial \Gamma _{\eta _{k}}/ \partial V_{\eta _{k}},\) \(k =y ,m,\) is, for any given value of the difference between the utilities in ( 64 ), larger than \(\partial \Gamma _{\omega }/ \partial V_{\omega }\) , meaning that entrepreneurs respond with a higher increase in the probability of voting for the candidate if the latter marginally differentiates her proposed platform in their favour; then, \(\tau _{\eta }\) will be set in such a way that the marginal utility of income for the entrepreneurs, \(\lambda\) , is lower than the marginal utility of income for the workers, \(v^{ \prime }\) . That is, the policy favours the citizen whom the candidate perceives as more likely to vote for her as a consequence of such a favour. Footnote 21

In ( 68 ) we consider interior solutions for \(\tau _{\eta }.\) Notice, however, that the characteristics of the solution depend on the abstention rate of the workers. Considering that there are more workers than entrepreneurs, in general \(\tau _{\omega }\) cannot be positive unless the workers’ abstention rate is particularly high even for large differences in the utility they can obtain from the two candidates’ platforms,

The educational policy must usually be paired with a redistributive taxation in favour of the workers because the latter suffer from a reduction in the household public good. This scenario can arise if the entrepreneurs’ benefits coming from the workers’ education are sufficiently high to compensate both the cost of the compulsory education package and the redistributive policy. Clearly, such a cost would be lower if the workers attached positive value to their children’s education. In that case, less redistribution would be needed for the workers to accept the compulsory education policy. If education were highly valued by the workers, the equilibrium policy could even prescribe positive values for \(\tau _{\omega }\) .

When workers do not attach any value to their children’s education, substituting ( 55 ), ( 58 ), and ( 61 ) into condition ( 66 ) and ( 56 ), ( 59 ), and ( 62 ) into condition ( 67 ), the two conditions can be re-written as

Further, substituting ( 65 ), the above equations can be re-written as

On the l.h.s. of ( 72 ) we have a measure of the marginal benefit of educational expenditure, for the young and the mature entrepreneurs weighted by the respective vote sensitivities to the candidates’ proposals; on the RHS, we have the weighted marginal cost, expressed in utility terms for \(\overline{e}\) . Similarly on the l.h.s. of ( 73 ) we have a measure of the weighted marginal benefit of school time while on the RHS we have the weighted marginal cost expressed as an opportunity cost for \(\overline{d}.\)

Then, as long as marginal benefits exceed or equal marginal costs, a solution in which a certain level of compulsory education is enforced emerges. We have then the interesting result that a compulsory education policy may be implemented at the political equilibrium, despite the fact that one of the two groups of which the society is composed would not educate the children in a free-market equilibrium. The driving force behind this result is the fact that the entrepreneurs gain from having an educated workforce.

The reputational effect plays a role in this respect, by making mature entrepreneurs care about future profits and thus value workers’ education, but it is by no means necessary to achieve our general result. In the absence of such effect (i.e. for \(\beta =0\) ), the l.h.s. of ( 72 ) and ( 73 ) would be lower yielding lower equilibrium levels for \(\overline{e}\) and \(\overline{d}\) . The benefit of the policy would be enjoyed only by young entrepreneurs implying a milder policy in case the equilibrium exists and a lower probability of existence of an equilibrium with the above characteristics but the general conclusion would be unaffected.

5 Conclusions

Over the years, there have been several contributions to the political economy of education. However, their focus seems to have been mostly on secondary or tertiary education. Also, typically, the main driving force behind the results has been the presence of income dispersion. Consider for example, the work by Epple and Romano ( 1996b ). In their model, a publicly provided private good, which could be education, is financed through a flat-rate income tax and policy is determined by majority rule; agents differ by their fixed incomes. At the political equilibrium, the private good is publicly provided as long as it is possible to top it up; interestingly, for some preference configurations, the political equilibrium is of the “ends-against-the-middle” variety, i.e. low- and high-income agents favour low levels of public provision whereas the middle-income agents favour high levels of public provision (see also Epple and Romano 1996a ). Another well-established result is that post-compulsory education policies are at least partially regressive, redistributing income from the lower income groups to middle- and high income groups (see e.g. Fernandez and Rogerson 1995 ).

We have taken a different route here, paying attention specifically to the question whether education should be made compulsory or not. We considered an economy with two categories of agents: entrepreneurs and workers. The type of occupation, rather than the income dispersion, plays a crucial role in the analysis. In laissez-faire , the former gain from having their children educated, while the latter have no interest in sending their children to school. We characterised the preferred education policy-cum-redistributive taxation for the two groups, and find that entrepreneurs favour a compulsory education policy while workers prefer a purely redistributive taxation scheme (in both cases, the policy should preferably be financed entirely by the other group). Then, we introduced a political process with probabilistic voting and verified that an equilibrium with both a compulsory education policy and some redistribution may exist in which the workers are constrained but the entrepreneurs, who benefit from hiring educated workers, are not.

We should note that, on top of establishing a political economy rationale for compulsory schooling based on the intuition that due to a productivity reason entrepreneurs care for education more than workers, our model shows also that it must co-exist with a (limited) redistribution policy. In particular, the model allows to make the point that a certain amount of redistribution is needed to compensate the workers for the fact that they are forced to “over-educate” their kids. This kind of perspective on redistribution could only be achieved, we believe, within the structure of the present model.

To the best of our knowledge, the literature on this topic, at least if we consider the political economy line of work, is limited. Most papers follows different approaches from ours. As an example of these alternative views, consider the contribution by Gradstein ( 2000 ), whose elegant argument is based on the idea of time inconsistency. He argues that private financing of education can be an inferior public choice if the current government representing the parents is unable to pre-commit the next generation to a restrained redistributive policy. He observes that public education, relative to private education, generates a more equal income distribution for the children, and therefore suggests that in the future the government will have to implement a relatively moderate redistributive policy, as chosen by the median voter. This reduces the incentive to under-invest in the children’s education, incentive that instead would be large in case the parents expected a more aggressive redistribution policy. Thus, human capital should be accumulated at a faster pace under a public education regime, and this would make it preferable for a majority of parents to the alternative of a private education regime. Another interesting example of a paper in the same vein is Correa et al. ( 2020 ), where the political support for different education funding regimes in a one-person, one-vote system is studied. Free education, in which all pupils are treated equally (the same amount of resources is spent on each of them) turns out to be the Condorcet winner. This is because, in economies with some degree of income inequality, any other system concentrates the educational expenditure in some way, either favouring the richest families or those with the smartest kids, and therefore, lacks majority support. This provides a political economy explanation for the observation that governments tend to favor free education for all students (i.e., to spend the same amount on each student).

Clearly, ours is an entirely different line of reasoning, not in contradiction, but certainly based on other foundations and moreover focused specifically on whether education should be made compulsory or not, rather than on whether it should be financed by the State or not (which is of course a somewhat different issue). In our model, income disparity plays a part, in particular by supporting the assumption that entrepreneurs are not constrained by compulsory education, but what really drives our result on the desirability of compulsory education at the political equilibrium is the difference in occupation, i.e. the different role that education plays for the entrepreneurs as opposed to the workers because of the industrialization/productivity reason we have mentioned in the Introduction. Redistribution, however, by compensating workers for the loss of their children’s production, plays a role in that it makes workers accept the presence of compulsory education at the political equilibrium.

That there is a correlation between education and social and political participation is a well established result. In particular Dee ( 2004 ) and Milligan et al. ( 2004 ) point out a causal effect from education to participation in voting and civic engagement for the US.

According to Galor and Moav ( 2006 ), the productivity motive was also crucial to favour education reforms in the Western world during the process of the Industrial Revolution when a shift towards more skill-intensive production processes occurred. In particular, they provide evidence suggesting that, during the first phase of the Industrial Revolution, physical capital was the fundamental resource for economic growth while, during the second phase of the Industrial Revolution, the increasing importance of human capital in production induced the capitalist elite to support the provision of public education. Further support to such a view has been recently provided by Squicciarini ( 2020 ) for France during the Second Industrial Revolution. In particular, she shows how the type of primary education, and specifically, the introduction of a more technical curriculum was key for promoting a more skilled labour force, and thus for economic development.

Main actors may change depending on the historical period. For example, by focussing on the Industrial Revolution period, Galor and Moav ( 2006 ) and Galor et al. ( 2009 ) point out a different conflict of interests between two types of economic elite: the landowners who were interested in decreasing the mobility of the rural workers and thus were not in favour of their education, and the industrialists who instead needed educated workers and supported educational policies for the masses.

Our focus in the present paper will be on the compulsory nature of the system. As for its subsidisation, the literature on public finance points out the role that subsidies may play in remeding the distortion in individual educational decisions due to the introduction of income taxation (see e.g. Bovenberg and Jacobs 2005 ).

See Bourguignon and Verdier ( 2000 ) for a paper showing under which conditions a minority oligarchic group may have an incentive to subsidise the education of the poors who are the majority in the society, and thus to favour the emergence of a middle class as well as a democratic transition. On the other hand, Naito and Nishida ( 2017 ) distinguish between primary and higher education and show that different patterns may emerge, depending on the amount of human capital of the median voter. Higher education is supported only if the majority of individuals accumulate sufficient human capital. If this is the case, however, a relatively high amount of public resources may be directed to higher education resulting in persistent high income inequality because the poor do not enrol in university.

However, as we shall see, we assume that the probability of participation is lower for workers; therefore the historical case could be seen as a limiting one theoretically. Also, it is interesting to note that in several countries mandatory schooling and universal suffrage were simultaneously introduced (Brazil: 1988; South Korea: 1948; India: 1950).

This may be one of the reasons why the length of compulsory education is found to be a predictor of actual education some 40 years later when the choices of educated parents display their effect on their children’s education (Murtin and Viarengo 2011 ).

This assumption simplifies our analysis and allows us to focus on the productivity reason behind the political choice on a compulsory educational policy. Should the model be developed in a dynamic set-up, interclass mobility would be crucial to capture the emergence of a more complex social framework (e.g. growth of a middle class, shares in ownership of means of production by workers, etc.).

Alternatively, the kids could be employed in a form of market work—the logic of the model would be the same although there would be a further layer of complexity.

The assumption that both time and money are essential to obtain an education outcome is crucial for our analysis. In fact, it would be impossible that one could get educated devoting no time to such activity and using no resources. Complementarity between d and e ,  on the contrary, is not necessary to obtain our results but, in addition to being a reasonable assumption, it is technically convenient (it simplifies the analysis by ensuring that the agent’s problem is well-behaved). Given that both time and money are essential inputs however, we would obtain qualitatively analogous results in case d and e were either independent or substitute in the \(y ( \cdot )\) function.

In other words, we assume that the marginal bargaining cost in equilibrium is higher than the profit obtainable by employing an additional worker.

This is of course just an innocuous simplification; the model works with any share of young to mature adults employed in each firm.

This can be interpreted as meaning that the bargaining costs of the worker are normalised to zero.

This is of course an extreme assumption, and we adopt it mainly because it simplifies the reasoning quite radically. It has to be remembered, however, that while the verdict on whether altruism or egoism prevails within a family is possibly still open, the assumption of egoism seems to be more robust to empirical scrutiny (see e.g. Cigno et al. 1998 , 2006 ). Moreover, our results would carry over to a setting with altruism, as long as the market equilibrium yields a less-than-optimal amount of acquired education, and Balestrino et al. ( 2017 ) show that even with full altruism there can be inefficiency in the provision of education due to comparative advantage issues.

The model cannot be applied to the case of a single income tax rate, because, as we shall see, the key mechanism driving the agents’ policy preferences is the desire of each group to shift the tax burden on the other group while retaining the benefit of the public expenditure. However, the case we consider here is more relevant, we believe, because, as the gross incomes of the two groups are different (see ( 9 )), it becomes a rough representation of a two-bracket income tax system - therefore, it approximates more closely real-world tax systems.

Notice that, since politicians are office- rather than policy-motivated, it does not matter whether they are workers or entrepreneurs. It would of course matter if we were to take the route of the so-called citizen-candidate models - see e. g. Osborne and Slivinski ( 1996 ) and Besley and Coate ( 1997 ).

We assume that the probability of voting is the same within each social group. The model could be extended to the case where the probability varies within each group for example because of an individual bias towards one of the candidates. If we adhere to the common assumption that biases are uniformely distributed, then the formal structure of our model continues to hold (see fn. 21).

Political economy models in line with this literature include Anderberg and Balestrino ( 2007 ), where the probability of abstension has been linked to the level of income, and Bourguignon and Verdier ( 2000 ), where the turnout in elections is determined by the level of education.

Corner solutions with \(\tau _{\eta }^{j} =1,\) \(\tau _{\omega }^{j} <0\) are implausible in a democracy (as well as those with \(\tau _{\eta }^{j} =0,\) \(\tau _{\omega }^{j} >0\) ).

Notice, however, that for the entrepreneurs the term in square bracket is the average of the sensitivity of the young and the mature ones.

In the case where the voting probability varies within each social group because of a uniformly distributed individual bias towards one of the candidates, the sensitivity \(\partial \Gamma _{\iota }/ \partial V_{\iota }\) represents the height of the distribution. Such height will be higher, the lower is the range over which the bias is distributed. Consequently, the sensitivity is higher the more concentrated is the distribution, implying that the policy will favour the group whose probability of voting is less dispersed (see Mueller 2003 , ch. 12).

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Balestrino, A., Grazzini, L. & Luporini, A. On the political economy of compulsory education. J Econ 134 , 1–25 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00712-021-00735-x

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Received : 13 January 2020

Accepted : 19 February 2021

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Issue Date : September 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s00712-021-00735-x

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