“What is really needed to make democracy function is not knowledge of facts, but right to education”

-Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

The parliament passed the Right of children to free and compulsory education act or Right to education act on 4 August 2009. Even though education is important there are large number of dropouts in schools.

To understand the reasons which leads to dropouts I spoke to some parents whose responses are given below.

A woman aged 42, said in the interview that “My son dropped out of school in the 7th grade to overcome the financial hardships, so he started working to earn for the family in his early stages of life”

Samina Sheikh (38 years) said that “Inspite of good education or a degree there are no job opportunities.” And added “This usually happens due to discrimination.”

Dawood Khan (35 years) said that “Family ritual is a reason that I experienced as a cause of dropout. If no one in the family is qualified so they pressurize the coming generation of their family to drop out of school.”

Sufiyan Sheikh (51) said that “I didn’t let my children to study as I already had a business and I wanted my children to take over it as it is our family business.”

Hindustan Times (26^th March 2018) reports data from the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development that 16.2 lakh girls in the country in the age group of 11-14 don’t attend schools. The article further states that Maharashtra ranks seventh in the list of states with maximum girls (56,936) not attending schools. The article quotes Education minister Vinod Tawde, “Here focus has been given to building hostels for girls in the state and ensure better transport facilities for girl students in rural Maharashtra.”

According to student’s point of view after speaking with a number of students, I came to know that for them dropping out of school are ill behavior of the teacher, lack of interest in studying, parent’s wanting their child to start contributing financially in the home, and often times bullying. Bullying can be for many reasons. One student spoke of his classmates bullying him and treating him badly as he was poor. They would not include him in their group which affected his morale.

From my interviews with parents and teachers, the solution for tackling dropouts is to educate the society about the importance of education. Elected representatives need to take initiative to reduce the rate of dropout. The measures that are needed to be undertaken are to create awareness and conduct counseling of the children. Educating parents about the importance of education and benefits of education and also the society. Counseling the children to know the reason of their lack of interest in studies and analyze the current condition of the child towards education, Identifying the issues, removing psychological bias towards them.