English  Français

Determinants of School Dropouts in India: A Study through Survival Analysis Approach

Mausam Kumar Garg, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Poulomi Chowdhury, University of Canberra

The present study sheds light on important determinants of school dropouts in India. Using the 75th round of NSSO data, it is observed that around 74% of population aged 18 years and above have dropped out from school before reaching 12th standard. The percentage is high among female population, in rural area and among Muslim community. The study used retrospective approach to find the factors responsible for school dropouts. For this purpose, cox proportional hazard model is used, which depicts that the risk of school dropouts is high among female population, rural area, Muslim community and SC/ST caste groups. Further, it is also observed from the model that government school children are in more risk of school dropouts. Furthermore, the major risk is attributed to those who are not interested in studies, have financial issues, engaged in economic and domestic activities and unable to cope up/failure in studies. Among female population, marriage is an important factors of school dropouts. Therefore, special attention are needed, to improve the quality as well as quantity of education by creating school infrastructures as well as constructing enough number of school especially in rural area.

Keywords: Inequality, Children and youth, Demographic and social surveys

See paper.

  Presented in Session 189. Population and Development: Human Capital Perspectives