NGOs and primary education: A case study in New Delhi, India

Abstract: The Millennium Development Goals are addressing the importance of education, because there are a great number of benefits of education, such as child mortality tend to decrease which gives women the option to give birth to fewer children. At the same time, when the Government is not able to provide sufficient education, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are often involved in the process, despite that they are being criticised due to ineffective working methods. This Bachelor thesis is a case study of six NGOs operating in the primary education sector in New Delhi, India. The aim of this thesis is to look at whether or not these six NGOs have the potential to improve primary education in New Delhi; the analysis of will be based on qualitative, semi-structured interviews conducted on site. This study is based on Uphoff’s and Atack’s theoretical approaches about the importance of state, market and civil society collaboration when it comes to achieving social change. The conclusion from the study is that these NGOs play an important role in primary education, not through directly providing education, but by raising awareness of the importance of education, advocacy and by preparing children for their studies. Key words: civil society, India, non-governmental organisations, primary education