Why is the number of dropouts increasing in India?

India has been trying for decades to spread awareness regarding the importance and need for education. This has helped to get more and more children to enrol in schools for education. But little has been done to avoid the number of increasing dropouts from schools. According to the data by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). The national dropout rate of India at the primary level was 4.34% and 17.86% at the secondary level. There are various reasons why a child would drop out of schools, may it be voluntarily or not. 

The reasons are as follows-

Family Disputes: There are times when in some social backgrounds, the atmosphere at home is not suitable for the development of a child and there are various violent or otherwise family disputes. May it be due to alcohol abuse, unemployment, or others, it many times leads to family problems. For children, these disputes can be worrisome and unsettling which makes them lose interest in academics and attending school along with this affecting their academic performance. This can lead to dropout.

Financial Problems: Many of the children have to drop out of school due to financial problems in their family mostly due to sickness or death of the bread earner in the family. AS the family’s income is restrained, the children tend to drop out of school in order to funds their family’s income, some or the other way. Such children mostly tend to work as labour in unorganized sectors and factories.

Child Insecurity: One of the major issues faced by Indian society is the safety of girls and women, regardless of the sector and social background. Many cases of eve-teasing and insults of girls can hold families from sending their girl child to school. Also, the presence of boys in school and a greater number of male teachers is seen as an insecure factor. Commuting alone to school or passing through bad localities increases the fear factor.

Academic Performance: Many children belonging from a poor social background do not have a favorable academic and study environment at home. Also, sometimes, the lack of motivation to teach is seen in teachers. This all leads to the failure of children in exams or very poor grades in academics. Many children tend and the families make them leave their education and schools.

Poor Infrastructural Facilities in the School: Government schools tend to have poor infrastructural facilities like unclean toilets, unsafe drinking water, non-working fans, lack of proper seating arrangement. These things often cause students to compromise with the facilities and many tend to drop out, especially girls for whom clean toilets become a necessity.

Bad Education Quality: How a teacher teaches plays an important role in a student’s learning process. Many times, it observed that teachers lack the ability to teach properly in the class. Irregularity in presence can also be seen among teachers. This fails to attract the students to schools and they tend to drop out.

Child Sickness: Chronic illness, epidemics often become an obstacle for students and prevent them from going to school for a long period of time. This can lead to problems like inability to cope up with studies, losing interest in schools, etc which causes them to drop out.

Household chores and Early age marriage: This is one of the most common reasons in the case of many girl dropouts. It’s usually the eldest sister who is assumed to be the one to take care of her younger siblings as well as help in household chores. This is a major issue when both parents work for a longer period of time and make the eldest girl stay at home and do household chores. Also, many girls are married off early in age as many families consider them a burden. Such girls are not allowed to attend the schools and are expected to do tall the household chores and work.

Unmotivated Parents: Many uneducated parents belonging from lower-income groups or from poor social backgrounds tend to show little or no interest in educating their children. They prefer if their children would rather work and earn rather than spending the whole day at schools. This cause children to drop out of forcefully and work somewhere.

All these reasons lead us to question regarding whether we have succeeded in conveying the need, importance and long-term effect of education on a family or are we still living in a society where education is just waste of space, time, paper and money?