By: Shruti Jindal

AIM:
This study aims at studying the major reasons behind the high dropouts of Tihar inmates
of Jail Number 5 at Primary level.

Literature:
While India has made significant progress in raising enrolment rates for primary
education schools have been less successful at preventing dropouts during this critical
learning phase.
According to data put out by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), the
national dropout rate at the primary level was 4.34 percent in 2014-15, and it was even
higher at the secondary level, at 17.86 percent.
There are many reasons why a child might drop out of school, which range from the
migration of families and child marriage to lack of school infrastructures such as drinking
water and toilets.
Another reason why drop-rates rise after Class V is that this is the stage when a child
reaches the age – 10-11 years – when it is considered suitable for induction into child
labor. The role of the teacher, too, is critical, as drop-outs often speak of teachers
beating them, and complain that teachers waste class time in chit-chat with other
teachers.

In 2016, The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows that despite a majority of all
juveniles arrested being 16 years or more, only 45% of them have completed primary
school, but haven’t completed high school or class X. In fact, 12.25% of them are
illiterates, while only 9.6% of them have a high school education.

Duration and sample size:

The Study is carried out for a period of 4 months on the inmates of age group 17-20
years of age of Tihar Jail Number 5.

Methodology:
The inmate teachers teaching at “Padho Padhao” will be interviewed before
screening the inmates in person.
The teachers will be asked the following questions:
1. How do you divide the inmates as per their level?
2. What all subjects do you teach?
 3. What is the duration of the classes per subject?
4. How do you decide the proficiency of the subject in an inmate?
5. Do they have periodic tests?
6. What are the problems faced while teaching a subject in a Prison
setting?
7. Do you charge fees from the inmates for these classes?
8. What are the methods, tools, and aids used for effective learning?
9. What are the basic reasons for the dropouts?
10. What proportions of the inmates continue their education after
seeking primary education?
11. Do the inmates get validations for the education the inmates
seek?

The experimental group of the inmates (Who dropped school at primary level)
will then be scrutinized on the basis of their educational background that is
seeking/ not seeking any classes in Prison. The group belonging to the age group
17-20 years will be interviewed and will be asked the question covering the
following reasons:
1. Bad Influence:
Bad influence on children is the most common reason for kids dropping out of
school. Early or unlimited exposure to alcohol, drugs, internet, and television
can distract children from pursuing academics and initiate them into antisocial
activities instead.
2. Academic Difficulty:
Inability to cope with the academic pressure is another reason for kids to opt
out of school. Studies prove that kids who do not read proficiently by fourth
grade are four times more likely to drop out of school. Studies also reinstate the
fact that students who fail in math and English in the eighth grade are 75% more
likely to drop out of high school.
3. Family and Socio-Economic Needs:
A research reveals that students belonging to low-income groups are more likely
to drop out of school. They may have to work to support their family. Some
children may need to stay back at home to take care of their siblings while the
parents go out to work. Divorce or separation of parents also affects the
education of children adversely.
4. Poor Health:
The health of a child greatly affects his learning ability and performance at
school. Illnesses that occur during childhood and continue lifelong may curb a
child’s ability to complete school.
5. Retention:
Retention has a negative impact on the self-esteem of children. They feel bad
about being older than their classmates and tend to drop out of school.
6. Disengagement:
Many kids find school boring. According to a study, almost 71% of students
become disinterested in high school while they are in the 9th and 10th grades.
They prefer to go late to school, skip classes and take long lunch breaks. The
lack of interest often leads to dropping out of school. Some students find it
difficult to connect with the teacher. A majority of students did not feel their
teachers motivated them enough to work hard.

High attention will be given to the pointer 2 i.e. Academic Difficulty. The
following areas are supposed to be focused:
1. Lack of quality time with teachers and counselors
Certainly, a high student: teacher ratio not only reduces the quality of education, providing a less nurturing,
personalized learning experience. It demotivates students.

Many education experts agree that the student experience improves if teachers and authorities take a
personalized approach. Leading education scholar Sir Ken Robinson is very critical of this lack of awareness.
He says that schools that do well “employ teachers that treat students as individuals that need nurturing,
not widgets that get blindly assembled.”

Pedro A. Willging and Scott D. Johnson, from the Department of Human Resource Education at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, studied the dropout rates at online education, and explain that
the specific reasons for dropping included dissatisfaction and the feel of a "de-personalized learning
environment.”

2. De-motivating school environment

Some put the reasons for leaving school very plainly: “boredom." However, there is an underlying issue
behind that lack of student engagement.
Lin Y. Muilenburga and Zane L. Berge studied student barriers to online learning. They explain at the
Distance Education that they found internal and external motivation barriers.

Internally, they found the feeling that their learning environment was not “innately motivation."

Externally, they found that students felt a lack of peer collaboration online, the absence of social cues or
fear of isolation.

A study made by GradNation.org surveyed some of the top reasons for dropping school. Some of them
show a significant trend in the classroom environment:

“No one cared if I attended."

“School environment."
“Teacher and school problems."

3. Disgusted by rote learning and martinet teachers:

Drill and Kill is a phrase educators use to describe teaching and learning methods used to master a set of
items.

Example:
List of muscles or bones in the body
Multiplication Table
Periodic Table of Elements

Many educators dismiss drill and kill because it promotes memorization or rote learning, as opposed to
deeper, conceptual learning. To people on this side of the issue, drill and practice have the potential to
decrease a student's willingness to learn.

Proponents view this issue quite differently.

As noted by Foster (2008 - 2010), every sport requires drill and practice to achieve excellence. Playing an
instrument requires drill and practice to become skilled. Reading also requires practice to become
proficient. Students who practice become more skilled. Those who do not practice tend to fall behind.
Proponents also assert that the right kind of repeated practice does promote deep learning.

According to the Childhood development stage of Preoperational which lasts from 2- 7

years, the child’s vocabulary learns around 150 words. They develop cognitive abilities
like learning to read, develop routines and display an increased attention span. At the
beginning of this stage, children develop their attention, long-term, and short-term
memory. As the child gets older, they learn to control their attention and use their
cognitive abilities to help them solve problems and achieve their goals.
Since the child’s cognitive abilities are not taken used properly in schools, the children
are not able to learn a considerable amount of information or pay their attention
towards the knowledge provided in school to identify their educational interest.
Thus, showing its impact in the Formal Operational stage; the child uses the learned
information (the information learned is absent in the given case due to the poor
teaching-learning environment provided to school students in India) to better
understand logic and abstract ideas. When the child realizes that he/she is not able to
solve the problems, the idea of dropout turns out to be the only way to get rid of it.
But, we know that learning is a lifelong process; can we have low drop-outs if we teach
these children about Mnemonics or How to learn?
To implement it better, we need to know if the inability to learn or memorize facts is
an unexplored yet major reason behind the high drop-outs of school children at the
Primary level which further inclines their attention more towards criminality.