Does the intersection of caste hierarchy and economic hardship in rural India compel children to abandon their schooling? Consider the story of Raju, a Dalit boy in Bihar who each morning is made to sit on the dusty floor of his government school, barred from sharing the same water tap as his upper‐caste classmates—daily humiliations that eventually led him to stop attending altogether. According to a 2023 study, nearly one in four Dalit students in Bihar drops out before completing elementary school; researchers attribute this directly to caste‐based discrimination within classrooms and school facilities . Such institutional exclusion, coupled with deep‐seated social stigma, erodes a child’s sense of belonging and makes each school day a fraught endeavor.
At the same time, economic pressures tighten their grip. Across India’s tribal regions, primary enrollment for Scheduled Tribe children may exceed 98 percent, yet only around 77 percent of those children enter secondary school—and fewer than half make it to higher secondary grades . Surveys reveal that for many families, the expense of uniforms, textbooks, and transportation—alongside unofficial “exam” or “bus fare” fees—turns education from a free public good into an unaffordable luxury. When a family’s livelihoods depend on every able hand, the opportunity cost of sending a child to school can be devastating: days spent learning are days without income or meals.
The plight of adolescent girls underscores how poverty and social norms compound one another. National data show that among married girls aged 15–19, a staggering 84 percent have dropped out of school, compared with 46 percent of their unmarried peers and 38 percent of boys in the same age bracket . Early marriage and domestic responsibilities strip girls of both time and mobility, while prevailing gender roles deem their education expendable. For many families in rural areas, sending a girl to school beyond puberty becomes an economic gamble they are unwilling—or unable—to make.
Geographic isolation further deepens these challenges. In Karnataka’s Dharwad district, a 2025 local survey found more than 150 school‐age children unenrolled just weeks before the new academic year began . Many families migrate seasonally for farm or construction work, bringing their children along to fields and building sites. These migratory patterns, driven by economic necessity, disrupt any hope of consistent schooling. In villages cut off by unpaved roads and lacking trained teachers, the journey to the nearest secondary school can stretch hours; harsh monsoon rains render paths impassable, and scarce teacher availability diminishes the academic value of the trek.
Nationwide, these individual stories aggregate into unsettling trends. UDISE+ figures for 2023–24 show the overall rural dropout rate climbing to 14.1 percent—a rise from 12.6 percent in 2021–22—even as primary enrollment rates for marginalized groups remain high . Simultaneously, assessment reports (ASER) reveal widespread learning deficits among those who remain enrolled, suggesting that mere attendance masks deeper disengagement . The data lay bare a structural paradox: schools are enrolling children but are failing to keep them, especially among those made to feel unwanted by caste biases and for whom schooling represents an unfeasible expense.
Ultimately, caste and economic disparity do not merely correlate with school dropout; they are its engines. Daily experiences of discrimination inflict psychological scars that sap motivation, while chronic poverty transforms education into a cost rather than an investment. As enrollment numbers swell, the fragile threads that bind marginalized children to their classrooms are fraying, threatening to unravel the promise of universal education.
References
Government of India, Ministry of Education. (2024). Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2023–24.
Human Rights Watch. (2014). They Say We’re Dirty: Denying an Education to India’s Marginalized.
IndiaSpend. (2025). DataViz: Where tribal students are left behind.
The Times of India. (2025, May 8). Survey: Around 150 children haven’t taken admission in schools in Dharwad.
TheMooknayak. (2023). Caste discrimination in schools: One in four Dalit students dropping out in Bihar.