Educational deprivation of the prospective labour force: A study of the disadvantaged youth who remained out of the educational system in India

Much of the recent research has focused on the quality of labour force but the prospective labour force also needs attention so that they become educated and more productive. This paper examines the level of school participation of children considering that educational attainment and quality of labour force are not mutually exclusive. We also examined age appropriate enrollment, rural urban differential in school continuation, and relative influence of socio-economic, contextual and area specific variables on out of school children. The reasons of never enrolled and school dropout are also analysed. The results indicate that a significant proportion of population in 10-19 years age group are still out of school with urban poor having the highest risk for never enrolled and dropout. Further it has been observe that presence of adult literate female in a household increases the likelihood of school enrollment for a child. The findings also suggest that a significant proportion of children are not in appropriate grade for their age which increases the incidence of school dropout. To conclude we may say that a significant proportion of the prospective labour force is never enrolled, some are not enrolled in the appropriate grade and some are school dropouts.