Abstract
Education is one of the important ingredients to measure the level of development of a society [UNDP (1990)]. Education not only contributes to improve the human capital of the society but also provide a civilised society (as economic agents are engaged in production, supplying labour, consuming good and services and participates in political decision making) and hence creates spillover effects and improves the welfare of the society without making anyone else worse off [Thomas, et al. (2001)]. It is the basic right of every member of the society to get equal access to education. Education creates improvement in the human capital, which is regarded as an essential determinant of growth and subsequently it facilitate in reducing poverty. Government should give proper attention to promote education in the society given its importance in fostering growth and reducing poverty. But shortage of resources, inconsistent policies and deficiency in political will have made it difficult for developing countries to achieve desired education targets. It can be observed from the available literature that educational gaps between various groups exist within countries and distribution of education is skewed. A skewed distribution of education implies a large social welfare losses resulting from underutilisation of potential human capital [Thomas, et al. (2001)].