According to the UNESCO’s Education For All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report on out-of-school populations, it has emerged that there are 57.8 million children who are out of primary school globally. Amongst these, almost 1.4 million are from India, ranking it among the top five nations with children aged 6 – 11 out of school.

The Right to Education Act came into effect on April 1, 2010 which ensures free and compulsory education to every child between the ages 6-14 years. However, the Act does not seem to have been effective as currently there are 8.1 million eligible dropouts in India. Due to various socio- economic reasons, students are forced to drop out of school and are unable to pursue their education. The main causes of dropout of both male and female, mainly in the rural areas, are reluctance of parents and financial constraints. As the parents have a poor educational background, they do not give much importance to the education of girls as they do to their sons, thus increasing the number of female dropouts.

Since the children drop out of school at an early age, they lack skills or qualifications to find employment opportunities. Hence, vocational training programmes prove useful in this situation and help them build a set of skills, thus securing their future.