• Only 62% of children reach grade five in their education.

• 42 per cent of girls who join school drop out before completing the primary cycle. 

• A girl child spends an appalling 1.2 years in school on an average.

• A National Campaign for Primary Education throughout South Asia costs at a mere $3 billion a year. South Asia spends more $15 billion on defense in one year.

• More than fifty years into Independence, India’s 6.3 crore children are still out of school.

Education has become a privilege rather than a basic right to the children of India. And for most, attending school is only when there is no work. As a result for most Indian children education is neither consistent nor secure. Typically, also most parents see children as an extra pair of hands with earning power. Add to this, the patriarchal social belief, which places more value on the male child, so, if a family does have enough money for educating its children, available funds will be allotted to the male children to go to school first. The female children, instead, will be expected to stay home and help with household chores and with raising their siblings.

Once girls reach age nine, their parents see them as economic resources and send them to work for wages either in or out of the home. Research shows that the higher the literacy rates, the lower the incidence of child labor. Children of higher castes are more educated because they do not need to work to help support their families. Since male children are granted the opportunity of an education more often than females, they have a greater opportunity to act independently of social constraints in their lives.