Educational Attainment of Youth in India: How Far Socio-Economic Factors Influence Access to Education?

Hierarchies of castes, economic status, gender, cultural diversities and uneven economic development deeply influence the access to and equality of education. Present study aims to identify the level and determinants of educational attainment of youth in India across socio-economic groups. The paper is based on data from the survey - “Youth in India: Situations and Needs Study”- conducted in 2006-07 in six states. Cross Tabulations and Logistic regression has been used in the analysis. The preliminary findings show that as the educational level of mother increases, a large proportion of youth attains higher secondary and above levels of education. Urban youth avail the higher secondary and above education twice more than their rural counterparts, also it is more among Hindus than the Muslims. The findings of this analysis demonstrates that improvements in socio-economic conditions are a pre-requisite for enhancing access to basic education.