Nowadays children aged between 3 and 6 years are mostly attending one of the two major forms of preschool viz. public and private preschools in India. Even though public preschools are free of any financial cost to the parents, their preference is more towards private preschools. Based on a primary sample of 1369 children from 1369 households, this study explores the determinants of parents’ preschool choices between public and private. Acknowledging the possible sample selection bias in dealing with households of only those kids who have attended a preschool, we deploy Heckman sample selection model as our main regression design. Our results show the choice of a type of preschool heavily depends on parent’s socioeconomic status. Economically better off and educationally more aspirant parents prefer private preschool over public preschool in spite of the fact that the former does not provide any other facilities other than education.

如今，年龄在3至6岁之间的儿童大多参加两种主要形式的学前教育。印度的公立和私立幼儿园。即使公立幼儿园对父母来说没有任何经济负担，但他们更倾向于私立幼儿园。基于来自1369户家庭的1369例儿童的主要样本，本研究探讨了父母在公立和私立学校之间选择学前班的决定因素。认识到在与仅接受过学前教育的孩子的家庭打交道时可能出现的样本选择偏见，我们将Heckman样本选择模型作为主要回归设计。我们的结果表明，选择一种学前班很大程度上取决于父母的社会经济地位。