Dropout in Secondary Education: A Study of Children Living in Slums of Delhi

Dropout is a universal phenomenon of education system in India, spread over all levels of education, in all parts of the country and across all the socio-economic groups of population. The dropout rates are much higher for educationally backward states and districts. Girls in India tend to have higher dropout rates than boys. Similarly, children belonging to the socially disadvantaged groups like Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes have the higher dropout rates in comparison to general population. There are also regional and location wise differences and the children living in remote areas/urban slums are more likely to drop out of school. Failure to complete high school not only produces negative outcome for the individuals, but also widens the existing social and economic inequalities. In order to reduce wastage and improve the efficiency of education system, the educational planners need to understand and identify the social groups that are more susceptible to dropout and the reasons for their dropping out. Keeping the above context in perspective, the present paper tries to examine the factors that contribute to dropping out by children at the secondary level. The analysis is based on the empirical study undertaken on the marginalized group of children living in slum areas of Delhi, which was conducted during the period from August 2006July 2007. The findings reveal that both the family and school related factors were responsible and appeared to be highly correlated with each other. It was also found that adolescents dropout not merely due to poverty and financial constraints but also because the schools did not respond appropriately to their special educational needs forcing them to dropout. The paper proposes that the State needs to adopt a holistic approach to dropout issue and not treat it as merely a discrete problem that can be tackled without reference to the broader socio economic setting and poor delivery of education in which it is rooted. Preventive and restorative approaches, briefly discussed in the paper, are needed to tackle the issue of dropout for children living in slum areas. Though the study is conducted at micro level, the analysis provides useful policy insights in terms of broader educational policies aimed at improving educational equity and quality with the adoption of appropriate intervention for focused groups at the local level. The paper is structured as follows: After the introduction, Section II describes the existing scenario of secondary education in Delhi and presents a synoptic review of literature on the issue of dropout. Section III focuses on the findings from the field giving details about the sample schools; Section IV gives detail on household profile of dropout children. Section V describes the phenomenon of dropping out, looking at the year and grade of the dropout; the decision to leave school; Section VI concentrates on the reasons for leaving the school; also discusses the current activities of the students, who have dropped out and discloses as to how many of them would like to rejoin if given an opportunity. The paper also considers ways to keep potential dropouts in school and looks at dropouts' own suggestions for changing the system and concludes by suggesting certain preventive measures to reduce drop-out at the secondary levels of education. ∗ Assistant Professor, National University of Educational Planning and Administration, 17-B, Sri Aurobindo Marg, New Delhi 110016. Email: sunitachugh@nuepa.org The author would like to thank Prof. K. Sujatha, Head of the Department of Comparative Education & International Cooperation, NUEPA for her critical comments and encouragement which were useful in improving the paper. Suggestions given by Mr. Anugula N. Reddy are gratefully acknowledged. The author also wishes to thank the anonymous referee of the NUEPA Occasional Paper series. NUEPA Occasional Papers