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Health

Connection Between Menstrual Poverty and School Attendance

The Road to Health Ministry’s  National Menstrual Hygiene Policy
The Road to Health Ministry’s  National Menstrual Hygiene Policy

For decades, India’s progress on girls’ education has been measured in enrolment numbers. How many girls entered school and how many stayed until Class 8. How many cleared secondary examinations. These figures tell an encouraging story, one of narrowing gender gaps and expanding opportunity. But they obscure a quieter question: how many days of school do girls actually attend, and at what cost?

For millions of adolescent girls, schooling is not a continuous experience but a punctuated one, interrupted regularly by something as predictable as the calendar itself. Each month, menstruation quietly redraws the boundaries of participation. A few days lost here, a few days missed there. Over time, the interruptions accumulate, shaping learning outcomes, confidence and the likelihood of staying in school at all.

Menstrual poverty is rarely framed as an education issue. It is discussed in the language of hygiene, health or dignity, often siloed away from classrooms and curricula. Yet its effects are deeply educational. When schools lack functional toilets, when sanitary products are unavailable or unaffordable, when stigma makes asking for help impossible, attendance becomes conditional. Education, in practice, becomes something girls can access only part of the month.

This is not an accident of culture or biology. It is the result of infrastructure choices, policy blind spots and a persistent discomfort with acknowledging how girls’ bodies shape their access to public life. In a country where staying in school through adolescence increasingly determines economic and social mobility, these monthly absences are not minor inconveniences. They are structural barriers hiding in plain sight.

What the data reveals, and what it smooths over

India has made real progress in bringing girls into classrooms. According to the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE+), gender parity at the primary level has largely been achieved. But attendance and retention tell a more fragile story, especially after puberty.

The National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) reports that nearly one in four girls aged 15–19 has missed school during menstruation, citing pain, lack of facilities, or fear of embarrassment. Other studies suggest the number may be higher in rural areas and urban informal settlements, where sanitation infrastructure is weakest.

What these figures rarely capture is accumulation. Missing two or three days of school every month translates into weeks of lost instruction over the course of a year. For students already navigating crowded classrooms, limited teacher attention and household responsibilities, the margin for falling behind is narrow. Over time, learning gaps widen, participation drops and disengagement sets in.

Attendance data, averaged across the year, masks these patterns. A girl may be counted as enrolled and “regular,” even as she misses nearly a quarter of instructional days.

Menstrual poverty is more than a product gap

Public discussions of menstrual poverty often centre on access to sanitary pads. Cost matters, especially for low-income families, but the problem is broader and more structural.

Menstrual poverty includes:

  • lack of private, functional toilets in schools
  • unreliable access to water and disposal facilities
  • absence of pain management or basic health support
  • stigma that discourages conversation and help-seeking

According to UNICEF, only about 42 percent of schools in India have separate, usable toilets for girls. Even where toilets exist, many lack doors, running water or safe waste disposal. In such environments, attending school during menstruation becomes an exercise in managing risk and humiliation.

For adolescent girls, especially first-generation learners, this vulnerability is magnified. A single incident—stained clothing, teasing, a reprimand—can be enough to trigger prolonged absence.

The role of stigma in shaping absence

Menstruation in India remains surrounded by silence. Many girls are taught early on to conceal it, endure discomfort quietly and restrict their movement. At school, teachers may lack training or comfort to address menstruation openly. Boys are often excluded from any education on the subject, perpetuating myths and ridicule.

Fear, rather than pain alone, drives absence. Fear of staining uniforms and fear of being singled out. And, the fear of becoming the subject of gossip that travels beyond the classroom.

Studies conducted across several states indicate that girls may stay home for two to five days each month during their period. These absences are often normalised within families and schools. Over time, missing school becomes routine, and returning becomes harder.

From absence to exit

The link between menstruation and school dropout is rarely linear. Girls do not leave school because of one missed day. But repeated absences intersect with other pressures: household work, caregiving responsibilities, early marriage expectations and safety concerns during travel.

For girls at the secondary level, academic momentum matters. Once that momentum breaks, catching up becomes difficult. Teachers move forward. Exams approach. Confidence erodes.

UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring reports consistently show that adolescent girls who experience irregular attendance are significantly more likely to drop out, particularly in low-resource settings. Menstrual poverty acts as a quiet accelerant, pushing girls closer to the edge of the system without ever being recorded as the cause.

The intent, and the uneven reality

India has not ignored menstrual health. Government schemes under the National Health Mission promote menstrual hygiene awareness and subsidised product distribution. The Swachh Bharat Mission and school infrastructure guidelines mandate separate toilets for girls.

But implementation remains uneven. Distribution of products can be irregular. Facilities may exist on paper but remain unusable in practice. Teachers and frontline workers are often overburdened, and menstrual education is delivered inconsistently.

Crucially, menstrual health is often treated as a health issue, detached from educational outcomes. Attendance records do not track menstrual-related absence. Dropout data rarely accounts for it. Without visibility, the problem remains peripheral.

The economic logic of keeping girls in school

From an economic perspective, menstrual poverty represents a striking inefficiency. Relatively low-cost interventions—safe sanitation, reliable products, education—can protect years of schooling.

The World Bank has repeatedly shown that each additional year of schooling for girls improves lifetime earnings, health outcomes and educational attainment for the next generation. Conversely, early dropout carries long-term costs: reduced labour force participation, poorer maternal health and intergenerational disadvantage.

When girls miss school because they cannot manage menstruation safely, the loss is not just personal. It is societal.

What evidence suggests works

Evidence from India and comparable contexts points to a simple but often ignored conclusion: single interventions are rarely enough.

Pad distribution without toilets has limited impact. Toilets without water go unused. Education without safe spaces fails to translate into behaviour change.

Programmes that show measurable improvements in attendance tend to combine:

  • consistent access to menstrual products
  • functional, private sanitation facilities
  • school-based education for all genders
  • engagement with families and communities

Where these elements converge, stigma reduces and attendance stabilises.

Civil society filling critical gaps

In areas where public systems struggle to deliver consistently, civil society organisations often play a bridging role. Smile Foundation’s work offers insight into how menstrual health can be addressed as part of a broader education and well-being framework.

Through initiatives such as Swabhiman and Mission Education, menstrual health is integrated into school health programmes rather than treated as a standalone issue. Girls receive access to sanitary products alongside education on menstrual health, nutrition and hygiene. Schools are supported in improving sanitation facilities, and teachers are engaged to create safer, more responsive environments.

Importantly, Smile Foundation extends its work beyond the classroom. Community sessions involve mothers, fathers and caregivers, addressing stigma where it originates. Mobile health units under the Smile-on-Wheels programme reach remote and underserved areas, where school infrastructure is weakest and absenteeism highest.

By linking menstrual health to attendance, confidence and academic continuity, these interventions demonstrate how addressing menstrual poverty can keep girls engaged in education during the most vulnerable years.

Why this connection matters now

As India pushes to improve secondary and higher education outcomes, the adolescent years have become decisive. Completing secondary school is increasingly the minimum threshold for economic participation.

Menstrual poverty, when left unaddressed, undermines this goal quietly and consistently. It does not announce itself as a crisis. It shows up as irregular attendance, slipping grades and gradual withdrawal.

The pandemic exposed how fragile school attendance can be. As education systems rebuild, menstrual health must be recognised not as an add-on, but as foundational infrastructure.

From silence to systems

Breaking the link between menstruation and school absence requires more than awareness campaigns. It demands systemic change: better data, stronger coordination between education and health departments, and sustained investment in school infrastructure.

It also requires listening to girls. Many already know what would help them stay in school. Privacy. Products. Permission to speak.

The question is no longer whether menstruation affects education. The evidence is clear. The question is whether India is willing to treat this monthly interruption as a public responsibility rather than a private burden.

Ensuring that girls can attend school every day of the month is not only a matter of dignity. It is a matter of educational equity—and of recognising that progress is measured not just by who enters the classroom, but by who is able to stay.

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Insights Smile

Digital Safety and Girls: New Vulnerabilities in the Smartphone Era

Innovating for Good: The Role of Digital Technology in Nonprofits
Innovating for Good: The Role of Digital Technology in Nonprofits

Economists like to ask what replaces what. When a new technology enters everyday life, what does it substitute, and at what cost? In India, the smartphone has substituted classrooms during pandemics, libraries in crowded homes, and long journeys to government offices. It has replaced waiting with immediacy and distance with access. What it has not replaced—at least not yet—are the social protections that usually accompany entry into public life.

For adolescent girls, this gap has proved consequential.

India now has more than 750 million smartphone users. The growth has been swift and uneven, propelled less by leisure than by necessity. During the pandemic, phones became classrooms. After it, they remained lifelines—to teachers, friends, government portals, potential employers. Digital access, once a marker of privilege, hardened into expectation. Digital safety, by contrast, lagged behind, treated as a private matter to be negotiated within families.

The result is a familiar pattern in development history: the benefits of progress arrive upfront, while the costs surface later, distributed quietly and unevenly. Girls, as they often do, absorb those costs first.

An incomplete market

From an economist’s perspective, this is an incomplete market. Access expanded without safeguards; participation increased without protection. Girls were invited into a vast public space—the internet—without the social infrastructure that usually regulates public life: norms, accountability, recourse.

Consider how this plays out. A smartphone lands in a household during COVID-19, bought for online classes. The device is shared. Passwords are known. Privacy is conditional. A girl learns to navigate WhatsApp groups and YouTube tutorials with speed and ingenuity, often teaching adults around her. She also learns, without instruction, to manage attention from strangers, rumours among peers, and the lingering fear that a screenshot can travel faster than truth.

National surveys capture the expansion of access but struggle to register its texture. According to IAMAI–Kantar’s Internet in India 2023 report, adolescents are among the fastest-growing cohorts online, with a narrowing gender gap in access. What the data doesn’t show is how access feels when it is policed, shared, and surveilled—when the promise of connection arrives bundled with risk.

When safety becomes surveillance

In many households, concern about online harm translates into control rather than conversation. Phones are confiscated at night. Passwords are demanded. Girls are warned to “be careful” without being told what caution looks like. If something goes wrong—an unsolicited message, a doctored image—the response is often punitive. Why were you online? Why did you reply?

This is not parental cruelty so much as institutional absence. Schools rarely teach digital citizenship in ways that grapple with consent, boundaries, and reporting. Teachers themselves are uncertain, wary of discussing sexualised harassment in online spaces. The National Education Policy gestures toward digital literacy, but implementation remains uneven and narrow, focused on functional skills rather than social ones.

In the vacuum, responsibility is individualised. Safety becomes a test of character. Girls learn to self-censor, to disappear from platforms, to carry risk quietly. The phone does not close at night; the anxiety does not either.

The economics of attention

The smartphone is not a neutral tool. It is an attention economy designed to reward visibility and engagement. For adolescents—especially girls—this creates pressures that are hard to name and harder to resist. Social comparison is constant. Algorithms surface ideals of beauty, success, and romance that are both aspirational and punishing.

Clinicians in urban India report a rise in anxiety and sleep disruption among adolescent girls, patterns mirrored in global research linking heavy social media use to mental distress. India’s mental health data remains sparse, but the stories accumulate: girls who withdraw from class discussions, who scroll late into the night, who feel watched even when alone.

What makes these harms elusive is their invisibility. A girl scrolling appears occupied, not overwhelmed. Distress is mistaken for distraction.

Gendered risk

Boys and girls experience the internet differently. Boys are more likely to be encouraged to explore, to fail and recover. Girls are taught to anticipate harm and avoid it. The asymmetry mirrors the offline world, where public spaces are navigated with caution. Online, the consequences can be swift and amplified.

Cyberstalking, non-consensual image sharing, grooming—these are not rare. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has repeatedly warned about gaps in reporting mechanisms for minors. Yet reporting remains low. Shame travels faster than help.

Here, an economist’s concept is useful: capabilities. Access alone does not equal freedom. What matters is whether individuals have the real ability to use resources to pursue lives they value. A smartphone without the capability to navigate it safely is not empowerment; it is exposure.

Education systems catch up—slowly

Schools could be the obvious place to build those capabilities. They are not. Digital literacy curricula, where they exist, emphasise tools, not terrain. How to submit an assignment. How to search. Rarely: how to recognise manipulation, how to set boundaries, how to seek redress.

Teachers cite discomfort and lack of training. Parents, many of whom came online late themselves, feel outpaced. Platforms promise safety features that are poorly understood and inconsistently enforced. The architecture of protection is fragmented.

And so girls learn informally, through peers and trial and error. Mistakes are inevitable. Support is not.

The first generation to grow up online

What distinguishes this moment is scale. Today’s adolescent girls are the first generation to grow up with digital footprints that begin in childhood. Their reputations—social and academic—are shaped online early. The internet does not forget easily, and forgiveness is not automated.

India’s digital public infrastructure is expanding rapidly, from education portals to health records. The state understands scale. It has not yet matched it with care.

Where civil society steps in

In the absence of robust institutional support, civil society has begun to do the slow work of translation. Digital safety, in practice, is less about rules than relationships—about spaces where girls can speak without fear of punishment and learn without spectacle.

Smile Foundation’s work with adolescent girls offers a window into what this looks like. Through programmes such as Swabhiman and Mission Education, digital safety is folded into life-skills education rather than isolated as a warning. Conversations begin with lived experience: what it feels like when a message crosses a line; how rumours move; what consent means online and offline.

Parents are brought into the room—not to police, but to listen. Counsellors link online harm to mental health, recognising that anxiety, withdrawal, and academic decline often share a digital root. The goal is not to eliminate risk—an impossible task—but to distribute responsibility.

These efforts are small compared to the scale of the problem. They matter because they treat girls as citizens-in-training rather than liabilities to be managed.

The cost of getting this wrong

The stakes extend beyond individual safety. Digital participation shapes who speaks, who leads, who is visible. If girls learn that public space—online included—is unsafe unless they shrink themselves, the costs are civic.

Economists warn that when risks are borne privately but benefits accrue publicly, markets fail. The smartphone era has delivered collective gains—connectivity, efficiency, growth—while offloading safety onto those least equipped to negotiate it. Girls pay with time, attention, and silence.

Toward a public understanding of safety

What would it mean to treat digital safety as a public good? It would mean teaching consent and boundaries alongside coding and training teachers to recognise online harm as a learning barrier. It would mean designing platforms with accountability that does not require victims to become investigators and, above all, shifting the moral frame—from “be careful” to “be prepared, and be supported.”

The girl with the cracked phone in Delhi is not naïve. She is navigating a world built quickly and explained poorly. Her safety depends less on her restraint than on our willingness to build the social infrastructure that should have accompanied access.

Progress, economists remind us, is not just about substitution. It is about who bears the costs. In India’s smartphone era, girls have carried those costs quietly. Making them visible is the first step toward sharing them.

Selected sources

Categories
Gender

The Invisible Workload of Adolescent Girls in Low-Income Homes

Girls’ Education Changes Entire Economies
Girls’ Education Changes Entire Economies

Every morning before school, 14-year-old Rina wakes up before the rest of her family in a low-income neighbourhood on the outskirts of Patna. She sweeps the floor, prepares tea, fetches water and helps her younger brother get ready. By the time she reaches school, she is already tired. When she returns in the afternoon, the work resumes—cooking, cleaning, caring. Homework is pushed to late evenings, if it happens at all.

Rina’s day is not unusual. Across India, millions of adolescent girls shoulder a volume of unpaid domestic and care work that remains largely invisible in statistics and classrooms. This labour—essential to household survival—is rarely acknowledged as work. Yet it shapes girls’ education, health, mental well-being and future opportunities in profound ways.

While much attention has been paid to early marriage, school dropout and malnutrition among adolescent girls, far less scrutiny has been directed at the daily workload that underpins all three. In low-income households, girls’ time is often treated as elastic: infinitely stretchable, readily available and ultimately expendable.

What the data shows and what it hides

According to India’s Time Use Survey (2019), women and girls spend nearly six times more time on unpaid domestic and care work than men and boys. Among adolescents, the gender gap appears early. Girls aged 15–19 spend significantly more time on household chores, sibling care and caregiving than boys of the same age.

Yet these averages mask deeper inequalities. In low-income households, especially in urban slums and rural areas, girls’ unpaid workload increases sharply when families face economic stress, illness, migration or lack of public services. Water shortages, absence of childcare facilities and unreliable public transport all translate into more work for girls.

What is missing from most datasets is the cumulative impact. Unpaid labour does not occur in isolation. It intersects with schooling, nutrition and rest. Girls who work more at home often attend school less regularly, arrive fatigued and struggle to keep up academically. Over time, the gap widens.

School attendance does not equal participation

India has made progress in enrolling girls in school. But enrolment figures conceal unequal learning conditions. Teachers and administrators often describe adolescent girls as “quiet,” “disengaged” or “falling behind” without asking what their days look like outside school.

Research by UNICEF and UNESCO has consistently shown that girls’ domestic responsibilities are a major factor in irregular attendance and learning loss, particularly at the secondary level.

In low-income homes, girls are often expected to balance school with responsibilities that would overwhelm many adults. When performance slips, the narrative quickly shifts from structural constraint to individual failure.

Care work as crisis response

Girls’ unpaid labour intensifies during crises. During the COVID-19 pandemic, school closures and health emergencies dramatically increased household care needs. Studies conducted during this period found that adolescent girls took on more cooking, cleaning and caregiving than before, often at the expense of schooling.

In households affected by illness, girls frequently become informal caregivers. In families facing job loss or migration, they step in to manage domestic stability. These expectations are rarely temporary. Once normalised, they persist even after the crisis passes.

The pandemic did not create this pattern. It exposed it.

The health costs of invisibility

The physical toll of unpaid labour on adolescent girls is poorly documented but significant. Carrying water, standing for long hours while cooking, and lack of rest contribute to fatigue and musculoskeletal strain. Combined with inadequate nutrition, these demands exacerbate anaemia and delayed growth.

Mental health consequences are even less visible. Constant responsibility, limited leisure and lack of autonomy contribute to stress, anxiety and emotional withdrawal. For girls navigating puberty, these pressures coincide with hormonal changes and social restrictions, compounding vulnerability.

Despite growing awareness of adolescent mental health, unpaid labour remains absent from most intervention frameworks.

Why girls and not boys?

The unequal distribution of household work is often justified as cultural norm. But norms are reinforced by policy choices. When public services are weak, unpaid care fills the gap, and when childcare is unavailable, girls step in. Same with when water is scarce, girls fetch it. When elder care is unsupported, girls provide it.

This is not accidental. It reflects whose time is valued.

Economists have long argued that unpaid care work subsidises the formal economy. In India, women’s unpaid labour is estimated to contribute trillions of rupees in economic value annually, yet it remains uncounted in GDP.

Adolescent girls enter this invisible economy early, often before they have the language to describe it.

Education at risk

Unpaid labour is a key but under-acknowledged driver of school dropout among adolescent girls. When families face trade-offs, girls’ education is more likely to be disrupted. Not because parents undervalue education, but because girls are seen as indispensable to household functioning.

This dynamic becomes particularly acute at puberty, when mobility restrictions increase and domestic expectations intensify. Education begins to compete with marriage preparation, caregiving and household management.

Policies aimed at keeping girls in school—scholarships, bicycles, uniforms—address visible barriers. They rarely confront invisible labour.

Why policy keeps missing the problem

India has robust policies addressing adolescent health, nutrition and education. But unpaid care work falls between ministries. It is not clearly owned by education, health or labour departments.

As a result, interventions remain fragmented. Schools are not equipped to recognise care burden as a learning barrier. Health programmes focus on outcomes without addressing time poverty. Social protection schemes often assume adult beneficiaries.

Until unpaid labour is acknowledged as a structural constraint, solutions will remain partial.

What change could look like

Addressing the invisible workload of adolescent girls does not require dismantling families. It requires rebalancing responsibility.

Key interventions include:

  • Reliable access to water, sanitation and cooking fuel
  • Affordable childcare and eldercare services
  • School schedules that recognise domestic constraints
  • Community dialogue that includes boys and men
  • Integration of time-use awareness into adolescent programmes

Crucially, girls must be part of the conversation. Their labour is often discussed without their voice.

Civil society’s role on the ground

Some organisations have begun to address this invisibility indirectly, by reducing the load rather than naming it. Smile Foundation’s work with adolescent girls offers an example of this approach.

Through programmes like Swabhiman and Mission Education, the Foundation combines academic support with health, nutrition and life-skills interventions. By providing after-school learning spaces, nutritional supplementation and health check-ups, these programmes reduce the daily strain that pulls girls away from education.

In several communities, Smile Foundation engages families to redistribute responsibilities, encouraging shared household roles and supporting girls’ continued schooling. Counselling and mentoring sessions help girls articulate their challenges and advocate for their time.

These efforts do not eliminate unpaid labour. But they make it visible, negotiable and, in some cases, lighter.

Making the invisible workload of adolescent girls visible

The workload adolescent girls carry is not a private matter. It is a public issue with long-term consequences for education, health and gender equality.

As India seeks to harness its demographic dividend, it cannot afford to ignore the unpaid labour that quietly limits half its youth. Girls’ time is a finite resource. When it is consumed by invisible work, opportunities shrink.

Recognising this labour does not diminish its value. It demands that the burden be shared.

Until then, millions of girls like Rina will continue to do the work that keeps households afloat—unseen, uncounted and unpaid—while being told to work harder at school.

Recent resources

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Education

What Schooling Looks Like for Children Living in Slums

Slum Children’s Education: A Quest for A Dignified Life
Slum Children’s Education: A Quest for A Dignified Life

At 7:30 am, nine-year-old Rafiq is already awake in a narrow lane of a Delhi slum. The room he shares with five family members doubles as a bedroom, kitchen and storage space. There is no desk. His schoolbag rests on a nail hammered into the wall. Before leaving for school, he fetches water, watches his younger sibling and eats whatever is available. Homework, if completed at all, is squeezed into late evenings or stolen moments during the day.

For millions of children living in India’s urban slums, schooling begins long before they enter a classroom. It is shaped by overcrowded homes, unreliable access to electricity and water, frequent migration and the constant pressure to contribute to household survival. Learning, in this context, is not just an academic challenge. It is a logistical and emotional one.

India’s cities are home to an estimated 65 million people living in slums, according to Census projections and urban development reports. A significant proportion of them are children. While urban areas are often assumed to offer better access to schools, the reality for slum-dwelling children is far more complicated.

Access does not equal learning

Over the past two decades, India has made substantial progress in school enrolment. Urban enrolment rates are high, and slum settlements are usually located near government or low-cost private schools. But proximity has not translated into quality learning.

Data from ASER and other learning assessments consistently show that many children in urban poor communities struggle with basic reading and arithmetic well into upper primary grades. In some urban slums, learning outcomes are comparable to or worse than those in rural areas.

The reasons are layered. Schools serving slum populations are often overcrowded. Teacher turnover is high. Instruction is rigid and syllabus-driven, leaving little room to address foundational gaps. Children who miss school due to illness, migration or household responsibilities fall behind quickly and few systems exist to help them catch up.

When early gaps go unaddressed, they widen over time. For slum-dwelling children, interruptions are frequent, making continuity especially fragile.

The classroom is only one learning environment

For children in slums, the home environment rarely supports school learning. Many families live in one-room dwellings. Noise, lack of space and shared responsibilities make quiet study difficult. Parents, often working long hours in informal jobs, may value education deeply but lack the time or confidence to support homework.

Research on cognitive load shows that stress, hunger and sleep deprivation significantly impair attention and memory. Children who come to school hungry or exhausted are expected to perform at the same pace as peers with vastly different living conditions.

This mismatch is rarely acknowledged in curriculum design or classroom expectations. When children struggle, the assumption is often a lack of effort rather than a lack of support.

Language, migration and belonging

Urban slums are sites of constant movement. Families migrate seasonally for work. Children shift between schools, languages and curricula. A child may speak Bhojpuri or Bengali at home, attend a Hindi-medium school, and be assessed in English by upper grades.

Language transitions, when unsupported, slow comprehension and erode confidence. So many education organizations and stakeholders have highlighted how belonging and identity are central to learning. When children feel out of place linguistically or culturally, engagement drops.

For migrant children, schooling is often discontinuous. Documents required for admission may be missing. Transfer certificates are delayed. Some children remain out of school for months during transitions, increasing the likelihood of permanent dropout.

Attendance is fragile

In slum communities, attendance fluctuates. Illness, eviction threats, water shortages or caregiving duties can pull children out of school without warning. Girls are particularly affected, often tasked with household work or sibling care.

Urban poverty also intersects with safety concerns. Long commutes, unsafe sanitation facilities and harassment deter regular attendance, especially for adolescent girls. When schools feel unwelcoming or unsafe, learning suffers regardless of curriculum quality.

The emotional weight children carry

Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of schooling in slums is emotional load. Children navigate adult anxieties daily: unstable income, illness, housing insecurity. This constant vigilance affects how they learn.

Learning sciences increasingly recognise that emotional regulation and safety are prerequisites for cognition. A child preoccupied with uncertainty cannot easily focus on fractions or grammar. Yet emotional well-being rarely features in conversations about urban education.

Teachers, themselves under pressure, are often not trained to recognise trauma or stress responses. Behavioural issues are punished rather than understood, reinforcing cycles of disengagement.

When schools adapt, learning improves

Despite these challenges, there are classrooms where slum-dwelling children thrive. What distinguishes them is not technology or resources alone, but flexibility.

Schools that:

  • group children by learning level rather than age
  • allow time to rebuild foundational skills
  • use activity-based and contextual learning
  • create predictable, caring environments

consistently show better engagement.

Research from Pratham’s “Teaching at the Right Level” approach demonstrates that when instruction meets children where they are, learning accelerates—even in low-resource settings.

The role of community-based learning spaces

In many slum areas, learning does not happen only in schools. Community centres, NGO-run classrooms and informal learning spaces fill critical gaps.

Smile Foundation’s Mission Education programme operates in several urban slums, offering remedial education alongside formal schooling. These centres provide small-group instruction, allowing children to rebuild reading and numeracy skills without the stigma of “failure.”

Beyond academics, Smile Foundation integrates nutrition support, health check-ups and psychosocial care. This matters. A child who is healthy, fed and emotionally supported is more ready to learn.

Teachers in these centres often come from similar communities, strengthening trust and communication with families. Parents are engaged as partners, not judged for constraints beyond their control.

Digital learning tools are used selectively, not as replacements for teachers but as supplements that allow children to learn at their own pace. For children who have missed months of schooling, this flexibility is critical.

Why remediation is not a deficit approach

There is a tendency to view remedial education as a temporary fix or a sign of failure. Learning science suggests the opposite. Remediation, when done well, acknowledges that learning is non-linear.

Children living in slums are not less capable. They have had fewer uninterrupted opportunities to learn. Programmes that rebuild foundations respect this reality rather than punishing it.

Smile Foundation’s approach reflects this philosophy. By combining academic reinforcement with life skills, creative activities and counselling, these programmes help children regain confidence, not just competence.

What schools and systems can learn

If schooling for slum-dwelling children is to improve at scale, systems must adapt to reality rather than idealised assumptions.

This means:

  • designing curricula that allow for catch-up
  • investing in teacher training on trauma-informed pedagogy
  • integrating health and nutrition with education
  • supporting migrant children with flexible admission policies
  • recognising that attendance gaps are structural, not moral

Urban education cannot rely on enrolment metrics alone. Learning outcomes depend on whether schools acknowledge the full context of children’s lives.

Rethinking what “schooling” means

For children in slums, schooling is not confined to textbooks or classrooms. It is shaped by daily negotiations with space, time and responsibility. When education systems fail to account for this, children disengage—not because they lack ambition, but because the system demands more than it supports.

Our core insight is that learning is human. It is shaped by relationships, safety and relevance. When schools and communities align around these principles, children living in the most difficult circumstances can and do learn.

Programmes like those run by Smile Foundation offer a glimpse of what is possible when education meets children where they are. They remind us that improving schooling in slums is not about lowering standards, but about widening the pathways to reach them.

If India’s cities are to be engines of opportunity rather than inequality, schooling for slum-dwelling children must be redesigned with empathy, evidence and imagination.

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Nutrition

Kitchen Gardens: A Scalable Model for Grassroots Food Security

Kitchen Gardens: A Scalable Model for Grassroots Food Security
Kitchen Gardens: A Scalable Model for Grassroots Food Security

On the edge of a village in Bundelkhand, a small patch of land behind a house grows spinach, bottle gourd, tomatoes and coriander. The garden is modest. There is no irrigation system beyond a reused bucket, no fertiliser beyond compost from kitchen waste. Yet for the household that tends it, this patch has become a buffer against rising food prices, irregular incomes and shrinking access to nutritious food.

Across India, variations of this scene are quietly unfolding. Kitchen gardens, long dismissed as marginal or informal, are increasingly being recognised as a critical intervention in the country’s struggle with food insecurity, malnutrition and climate stress. What makes them compelling is not novelty, but scale: they are low-cost, locally adapted, and rooted in the daily labour of households most affected by food system failures.

In a country where food insecurity coexists with agricultural abundance, kitchen gardens offer a way to return some control over nutrition to communities themselves.

India’s food paradox

India produces enough food to feed its population. Yet malnutrition remains stubbornly high. According to NFHS-5, over 57 per cent of women aged 15–49 are anaemic, and nearly one-third of children under five are stunted. Dietary diversity remains limited, particularly among low-income households, where meals are dominated by cereals and lack vegetables, fruits and protein.

This paradox is structural. India’s food system prioritises caloric sufficiency over nutritional adequacy. Public distribution systems ensure access to grains, but fresh produce remains expensive, volatile in price and unevenly available. Climate change has only intensified these vulnerabilities, disrupting supply chains and increasing dependence on purchased food.

For households living on the margins, food insecurity is not always about hunger. It is about monotony, micronutrient deficiency and the quiet erosion of health.

Why kitchen gardens matter

Kitchen gardens intervene at a different point in the food system. Instead of focusing on markets or subsidies, they operate at the household level, where decisions about food are made daily.

Research across low- and middle-income countries shows that home and community gardens improve dietary diversity, particularly intake of vegetables and micronutrient-rich foods. A 2023 FAO review found that households with kitchen gardens consumed a wider variety of foods and were less vulnerable to seasonal shortages.

In India, these benefits are especially pronounced for women and children. Women are typically responsible for both food preparation and garden maintenance. When nutritious food is grown at home, it reduces dependence on cash income and market access, both of which are often unstable.

Kitchen gardens also act as shock absorbers. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, households with access to home-grown vegetables reported better food security than those entirely dependent on markets, according to multiple state-level assessments.

A climate-resilient intervention

Climate change is reshaping India’s food landscape. Erratic rainfall, prolonged heatwaves and water stress are affecting crop yields and driving up prices. Kitchen gardens, when designed with local conditions in mind, can increase resilience.

Drought-tolerant crops, seasonal planting and water-efficient practices allow households to adapt quickly. Unlike large-scale agriculture, kitchen gardens are flexible. They respond to microclimates and household needs rather than market signals.

A 2022 report by the World Resources Institute highlighted home gardens as a viable adaptation strategy in climate-vulnerable regions, particularly when combined with indigenous knowledge and low-input practices.

Gender, labour and agency

Any serious discussion of kitchen gardens must confront questions of labour. Kitchen gardens rely heavily on women’s unpaid work. If framed poorly, they risk adding to women’s already disproportionate burden of care and subsistence labour.

But when supported thoughtfully, kitchen gardens can also shift power dynamics. Control over food production often translates into greater say over household nutrition. Studies from India and Bangladesh suggest that women involved in home gardening report increased decision-making authority over food choices and improved self-esteem.

The difference lies in design. Programmes that treat women as passive beneficiaries tend to extract labour without agency. Those that integrate training, peer networks and access to inputs are more likely to produce lasting benefits.

Why kitchen gardens are scalable

Kitchen gardens scale differently from conventional interventions. They do not require uniformity. In fact, their strength lies in variation.

India’s agro-climatic diversity means that a single nutrition solution rarely fits all. Kitchen gardens allow communities to grow what is locally appropriate—leafy greens in one region, millets or tubers in another. They also allow for gradual adoption. Households can start small and expand as confidence grows.

From a policy perspective, kitchen gardens are cost-effective. They require minimal infrastructure investment compared to large feeding programmes, and they complement rather than replace existing schemes such as ICDS and Midday Meals.

Several states have begun to recognise this. Odisha’s nutrition programmes integrate household gardens with anganwadi services. Kerala has promoted home gardening through local self-government institutions, linking food security to decentralised governance.

The limits of romanticising self-sufficiency

Many evidence-based health think tanks have long cautioned against romanticising community-based food solutions without addressing structural inequities. Kitchen gardens cannot compensate for landlessness, water scarcity or systemic poverty. Nor should they absolve the state of responsibility for ensuring food security.

For urban informal settlements, space constraints limit feasibility. For landless households, access to land remains a barrier. Without support, kitchen gardens risk becoming a solution only for those already slightly better off.

This is why integration matters. Kitchen gardens work best when paired with institutional support: access to seeds, water, training, health services and social protection.

Civil society’s role in bridging gaps

Non-governmental organisations have been instrumental in translating kitchen gardening from idea to practice. Their proximity to communities allows them to tailor interventions to local realities.

Smile Foundation’s nutrition and health programmes illustrate this approach. Through Project Poshan and its broader community health initiatives, the Foundation supports kitchen gardens as part of a holistic nutrition strategy. Rather than promoting gardens in isolation, Smile integrates them with nutrition counselling, maternal health support and child monitoring.

In several programme areas, families are encouraged to grow iron-rich vegetables and seasonal produce using locally available resources. Demonstration plots, community training sessions and follow-up support help ensure that gardens are maintained beyond initial enthusiasm.

Importantly, Smile Foundation works through women’s groups and community volunteers, recognising that sustainability depends on collective ownership. In regions where water access is limited, kitchen gardens are adapted to local constraints through low-water practices and crop selection.

These efforts do not replace public nutrition schemes. They complement them, addressing gaps that centralised systems often struggle to fill.

What important stakeholders can learn

The appeal of kitchen gardens lies in their simplicity, but scaling them responsibly requires policy attention.

First, kitchen gardens must be integrated into nutrition and health frameworks, not treated as standalone projects. Linking them to anganwadis, schools and primary healthcare can amplify impact.

Second, programmes must account for gendered labour. Providing tools, inputs and recognition for women’s work is essential.

Third, urban contexts require different models. Community gardens, rooftop spaces and institutional plots can extend benefits to dense settlements.

Finally, evaluation matters. Success should be measured not just by the number of gardens established, but by changes in dietary diversity, health outcomes and agency.

Reclaiming food security from the margins

Kitchen gardens will not solve India’s food crisis alone. But they challenge a dominant assumption: that food security must flow from markets downward. Instead, they suggest that resilience can be cultivated upward, from households and communities outward.

In an era of climate uncertainty and economic precarity, this matters. Food systems that rely exclusively on distant supply chains are fragile. Those that allow people to participate in production, even at a small scale, offer a measure of stability.

The quiet spread of kitchen gardens across India reflects a broader truth. Solutions to food insecurity do not always arrive through sweeping reforms. Sometimes, they grow slowly, tended daily, in spaces that policy has long overlooked.

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Education In The Spotlight Insights

CSR in STEM: Build India’s Next Problem Solvers

Are there Challenges in STEM Education in India?
Are there Challenges in STEM Education in India?

In classrooms across India, science is often taught as certainty. Formulas are memorised, experiments are demonstrated rather than attempted, and answers are expected to be right the first time. This approach has produced generations of competent exam-takers, but far fewer confident problem-solvers. As India positions itself as a future knowledge economy, this distinction matters more than ever.

Problem-solving is not a skill that emerges fully formed in adulthood. It is cultivated slowly, through exposure to uncertainty, failure, iteration and curiosity. In many ways, the question India now faces is not whether it has enough young people studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), but whether it is creating the conditions for those students to think scientifically.

This is where corporate social responsibility (CSR) enters the conversation, not as philanthropy alone, but as a long-term investment in the cognitive infrastructure of the country.

From STEM as subjects to STEM as ways of thinking

Globally, there has been a shift in how educators understand STEM. No longer is it viewed simply as a pipeline to technical jobs. Research increasingly frames STEM education as a means of developing transferable skills: critical thinking, systems reasoning, collaboration and adaptive problem-solving.

A 2023 UNESCO report on science education emphasised that early and inclusive STEM exposure improves not only technical competence but also civic reasoning and resilience in uncertain environments.

In India, however, access to such exposure remains uneven. Elite schools experiment with robotics labs and inquiry-based learning, while many government schools struggle with basic science infrastructure. According to ASER 2022, a majority of rural students in upper primary grades are unable to apply basic science concepts to real-world problems.

This gap is not simply about resources. It reflects a deeper divide in how learning itself is experienced.

Why problem-solving cannot be taught late

Cognitive science is clear on one point: habits of thinking are shaped early. The brain’s executive functions—planning, flexible thinking, working memory—develop throughout childhood and adolescence, strengthened through repeated engagement with open-ended challenges.

A growing body of research shows that students exposed to hands-on, inquiry-driven STEM learning in middle school demonstrate stronger reasoning skills and greater persistence in later academic and professional contexts.

Yet in India, meaningful STEM engagement is often postponed until higher secondary or even college. By then, many students—especially girls and those from marginalised communities—have already internalised the idea that science is inaccessible or intimidating.

CSR interventions that focus only on scholarships or merit awards, while valuable, often arrive too late in the learning journey to change this perception.

The unequal geography of scientific curiosity

India’s STEM landscape mirrors its broader inequalities. Urban students are more likely to encounter science as experimentation. Rural and tribal students encounter it as abstraction.

For girls, the barriers are compounded. Social expectations, safety concerns, lack of role models and limited encouragement converge to narrow participation. NFHS-5 data shows that adolescent girls continue to lag in science stream enrolment in many states, despite comparable early aptitude.

Climate change, public health crises and technological disruption further sharpen the stakes. India does not merely need more engineers. It needs citizens capable of reasoning through complex systems—whether managing water scarcity, understanding health misinformation or adapting livelihoods to environmental change.

Problem-solving, in this sense, is not an employability skill alone. It is a democratic one.

What CSR in STEM can do that schools often cannot

Schools operate under constraints: curriculum mandates, assessment pressures, limited teacher training and infrastructural shortfalls. CSR initiatives, when thoughtfully designed, can occupy a different space.

They can:

  • Introduce exploratory learning without the pressure of exams
  • Support teacher capacity-building beyond syllabus coverage
  • Fund experimentation, failure and iteration
  • Bring real-world problems into classrooms

Importantly, CSR in STEM can take a long view. Unlike short-term academic cycles, companies can invest across years, tracking not just test scores but confidence, curiosity and persistence.

Internationally, this approach has gained traction. Corporate-backed STEM programmes in Finland, Singapore and parts of Africa have focused on inquiry-based learning and teacher mentorship rather than hardware alone. Evaluations consistently show that outcomes improve when technology is paired with pedagogy, not treated as a substitute for it.

The risk of “STEM-washing”

At the same time, CSR-led STEM initiatives are not inherently effective. Many fail by mistaking exposure for learning.

A robotics kit delivered to a school without trained facilitators often ends up unused. Coding workshops conducted as one-off events may generate excitement but little retention. Measuring success by the number of devices distributed or sessions conducted risks reducing STEM to spectacle.

Aeon’s long-standing critique of “solutionism” in education applies here. Learning is relational and contextual. It requires time, trust and continuity. CSR initiatives that overlook this reality may unintentionally reinforce the very gaps they aim to close.

India’s CSR in STEM moment and its limits

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 signals a conceptual shift, emphasising experiential learning, critical thinking and multidisciplinary education. It explicitly calls for early exposure to scientific temper and problem-solving.

Yet policy intent does not automatically translate into classroom transformation. Teacher training systems remain stretched. Assessment reforms move slowly. In many states, schools lack the flexibility to implement inquiry-based models consistently.

This is where CSR, aligned with public systems rather than parallel to them, can act as a catalytic layer—piloting models that the state can later scale.

Where civil society fits in for CSR in STEM

The most effective CSR-STEM initiatives in India tend to operate through partnerships with civil society organisations that understand local contexts. NGOs bring community trust, long-term presence and an understanding of social barriers that companies often lack.

Smile Foundation’s education programmes offer a useful illustration. Through its Mission Education initiative, the Foundation integrates STEM learning into broader educational support for children from underserved communities. Rather than treating science as a standalone subject, STEM concepts are embedded within real-life problem-solving—water conservation, basic health science, environmental sustainability and digital literacy.

In several centres, STEM labs and smart classrooms are paired with teacher training and student-led projects. The emphasis is not on producing future engineers per se, but on nurturing curiosity and confidence. Students are encouraged to ask questions, test ideas and collaborate—skills that extend beyond science.

Smile Foundation’s approach also recognises that learning does not occur in isolation. Nutrition, health and emotional safety shape cognitive capacity. By addressing these factors alongside education, the programmes create conditions in which problem-solving can take root.

CSR partnerships have enabled the scaling of such models, particularly in regions where public resources are limited. The lesson here is not that CSR replaces the state, but that it can support experimentation within it.

Reframing success

If companies are serious about contributing to India’s STEM future, they may need to rethink how success is defined.

Instead of asking:

  • How many students were reached?
  • How many devices were distributed?

They might ask:

  • Did students become more willing to attempt difficult problems?
  • Did girls participate as actively as boys?
  • Did teachers feel equipped to sustain the approach?
  • Did students begin to see science as relevant to their lives?

These questions are harder to quantify, but more meaningful.

A longer view of responsibility

CSR in STEM, at its best, is not about creating a workforce pipeline tailored to immediate industry needs. It is about contributing to a society capable of reasoning through uncertainty.

India’s future challenges—climate adaptation, public health, urbanisation, technological ethics—will not yield to formulaic thinking. They will require citizens who are comfortable with complexity, evidence and debate.

By investing in STEM as a way of thinking rather than a set of subjects, companies have an opportunity to play a quiet but consequential role in shaping that future.

The next generation of problem-solvers will not be built through labs alone. They will be built through patience, partnership and a willingness to see education not as output, but as formation.

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Health

Telemedicine has become the first stop for care. How?

The Green Gains of Telemedicine
The Green Gains of Telemedicine

On a humid afternoon in eastern Uttar Pradesh, a woman in her thirties sits on a plastic chair inside a temporary health camp, her phone balanced on her lap. She is not speaking to a doctor in the room. Instead, a physician appears on the screen, asking questions about her blood pressure readings and the dizziness she has been experiencing for weeks. The interaction lasts under ten minutes. She leaves with advice, a prescription and instructions on when she should seek in-person care.

For millions of Indians, this is increasingly what healthcare looks like.

Not because telemedicine has been carefully designed as the country’s front line of care, but because, in many places, there is little else. As India continues to grapple with doctor shortages, uneven primary care coverage, and rising chronic disease, telemedicine has begun to function as the health system’s most reliable first point of contact — often by default rather than intention.

A system shaped by scarcity

India’s healthcare access problem is well-documented. The country has fewer doctors per 1,000 people. Specialist care remains concentrated in urban centres, while roughly two-thirds of the population lives in rural or semi-urban areas. Primary Health Centres and Community Health Centres continue to face staffing and infrastructure gaps, particularly in remote districts.

For patients, this translates into delay. Seeking care often means travelling long distances, losing daily wages, arranging childcare or negotiating household permission — barriers that disproportionately affect women, older adults, and people with disabilities.

In this context, telemedicine has emerged not as a futuristic solution, but as a workaround. A way to answer basic questions, triage symptoms and decide whether the effort of reaching a hospital is necessary.

The pandemic accelerated what was already coming

Telemedicine existed in India well before COVID-19, but adoption was limited. That changed abruptly in 2020, when lockdowns made in-person consultations difficult or impossible. In response, the government released formal Telemedicine Practice Guidelines, legitimising remote consultations and clarifying legal responsibilities for providers.

Around the same time, the national eSanjeevani platform expanded rapidly. Initially conceived as a hub-and-spoke model connecting primary centres to specialists, it evolved into a direct doctor-to-patient service. As of 2024, the platform has delivered more than 200 million teleconsultations, according to government figures, making it one of the largest public-sector telemedicine programmes in the world.

What is notable is not just the scale, but the geography. Most eSanjeevani consultations originate outside major cities. Many are first-time interactions with the formal health system.

Telemedicine, in other words, has become less about convenience and more about access.

First contact, not full care

Clinicians involved in telemedicine are careful to describe its role narrowly. Remote consultations work best, they say, when they are used for triage, follow-up and basic management — not complex diagnosis.

For common conditions such as fever, respiratory infections, skin complaints or medication refills for chronic diseases, telemedicine can be effective. It allows doctors to assess urgency, provide guidance and direct patients appropriately. In overstretched systems, that filtering function matters.

A growing body of research supports this cautious use. Studies from India and other low- and middle-income countries suggest that telemedicine can improve continuity of care for non-communicable diseases when combined with physical monitoring and referral pathways. But outcomes depend heavily on how services are integrated.

Used in isolation, telemedicine risks becoming a dead end. Used as part of a broader primary care strategy, it can reduce pressure on hospitals and shorten delays.

Uneven gains, persistent gaps

Telemedicine’s rise has not been uniform. Connectivity remains inconsistent, especially in tribal and mountainous regions. Digital literacy varies sharply by age, gender, and education. Language barriers persist, particularly for patients who do not speak Hindi or English comfortably.

There are also questions about quality. Not all platforms maintain the same clinical standards. Prescribing practices, follow-up mechanisms, and data privacy safeguards differ widely across providers.

A 2022 World Health Organization report on digital health warned that without deliberate equity measures, telemedicine could widen existing gaps by primarily benefiting those who are already connected.

India’s experience reflects that tension. While urban users increasingly treat teleconsultations as routine, many rural patients rely on intermediaries — frontline workers, pharmacists or mobile health staff — to navigate digital care. Where such facilitation exists, telemedicine works better. Where it does not, uptake remains low.

Gender, privacy and the appeal of distance

One area where telemedicine’s impact is more consistently visible is women’s health. For women constrained by mobility, caregiving responsibilities or social norms, remote consultations lower the threshold for seeking care.

Maternal health advice, menstrual health concerns, nutrition counselling and mental health screening are among the most common reasons women use telemedicine platforms, according to both public and private providers.

Privacy plays a role. Speaking to a doctor without travelling, waiting in crowded clinics or negotiating multiple permissions can make care feel more accessible. That said, access still depends on phone ownership and control, which remain unequal.

Chronic disease and continuity

India is facing a steady rise in non-communicable diseases, including diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular conditions. Managing these illnesses requires regular follow-up, medication adherence and lifestyle counselling — tasks that overburden physical facilities.

Telemedicine has increasingly been used to fill these gaps. Remote check-ins allow clinicians to adjust treatment plans, review reports and monitor symptoms without requiring repeated hospital visits. For patients, this reduces both cost and disruption.

However, clinicians caution that telemedicine works best when paired with periodic physical examinations and diagnostics. Remote care can maintain continuity, but it cannot replace the need for on-ground services.

Civil society’s role in bridging the last mile

Some of the most effective uses of telemedicine in India have emerged not from standalone apps, but from hybrid models that combine digital consultations with physical outreach.

Non-governmental organisations and community health programmes have integrated telemedicine into mobile clinics, school health initiatives, and rural outreach efforts. These models address two persistent barriers: trust and follow-through.

Smile Foundation’s Smile on Wheels programme is one such example. Operating mobile medical units across multiple states, the programme uses telemedicine to connect patients in underserved communities with doctors when specialists are not physically present. Basic diagnostics and physical assessments are conducted on-site, while teleconsultations provide clinical guidance and referrals.

The approach reflects a broader lesson from India’s telemedicine experience: technology alone is insufficient. What matters is how it is embedded within existing care relationships.

Smile Foundation has also used telemedicine for health education, adolescent counselling and follow-up care, particularly in regions where public services are thin. These interventions do not replace government systems, but operate alongside them, often reaching populations that remain outside routine care.

Policy momentum, unresolved questions

Government support has been central to telemedicine’s expansion. Platforms like eSanjeevani are now part of India’s broader digital public infrastructure, alongside initiatives such as the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, which aims to integrate health records and identifiers.

Yet challenges remain. Provider training for digital care is uneven. Data protection frameworks are still evolving. Quality assurance mechanisms are limited, particularly in the private sector.

There is also the question of sustainability. Telemedicine grew rapidly under emergency conditions. Whether it continues to receive investment and regulatory attention as a core component of primary care remains to be seen.

A quiet shift, still in progress

Telemedicine has not transformed India’s healthcare system. It has not eliminated shortages or erased inequities. What it has done is narrow the gap between concern and contact.

For millions of patients, the first interaction with a doctor now happens through a screen. Sometimes that interaction leads to reassurance. Sometimes to referral. And, sometimes to nothing more than advice to wait and watch. But it happens — and that, in a system long defined by delay, is not insignificant.

Whether telemedicine remains a stopgap or evolves into a durable layer of care will depend on how deliberately it is integrated into India’s health system. For now, it is filling a role that few others have managed to occupy: the first mile.

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Education Insights

Why Every Indian Child Needs Climate Literacy Before Class 10

Climate change and children
Climate change and children

Climate change in India is no longer a distant warning issued from international summits or scientific journals. It is visible in everyday disruptions to life and learning. Schools shut down during prolonged heatwaves in north India. Classrooms in flood-prone districts of Assam, Bihar and Kerala are converted into relief shelters. Children in drought-affected regions walk longer distances for water, missing school altogether. In coastal areas, repeated cyclones and salinisation of groundwater steadily erode livelihoods, pushing families into distress migration.

For millions of children, climate change is not an abstract concept. It is shaping attendance, nutrition, safety and learning outcomes. Yet, for most Indian students, climate education remains fragmented, late and often limited to textbook definitions rather than lived experience. This gap has serious implications, not only for environmental outcomes, but for equity, resilience and the future of education itself.

A country at high risk, children at the centre

India ranks among the countries most vulnerable to climate shocks. According to UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk Index, India is ranked 26th out of 163 countries in terms of children’s exposure and vulnerability to climate-related hazards. The reasons are structural: high population density, widespread poverty, dependence on climate-sensitive livelihoods, and uneven access to infrastructure.

In 2024 alone, an estimated 54.8 million children in India were affected by heatwaves, with temperatures crossing physiological safety thresholds in several states. Schools across Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were forced to close or shorten hours repeatedly. These disruptions are not evenly distributed. Schools in low-income neighbourhoods, rural areas and informal settlements are the least equipped to cope. Many lack adequate ventilation, drinking water, shaded spaces or cooling systems.

Across South Asia, UNICEF estimates that over 128 million students experience climate-related disruptions to schooling every year, with India accounting for a significant share. Floods, cyclones and droughts routinely interrupt academic calendars, damage infrastructure and displace families. For children already at risk of dropping out, climate shocks often become the final push out of the education system.

Girls are disproportionately affected. During climate-induced crises, they are more likely to be pulled out of school to manage household work, care for siblings or contribute to income generation. What begins as a temporary disruption often turns into permanent dropout.

Climate change is reshaping classrooms

The effects of climate change are no longer external to education. They are reshaping classrooms themselves. Heat stress reduces concentration and learning capacity. Poor air quality, worsened by climate-driven wildfires and dust storms, increases respiratory illness and absenteeism. Flood-damaged schools operate without proper sanitation or electricity for months.

Yet, climate change is rarely treated as a core educational issue. It is still framed as an environmental concern, not as a determinant of learning outcomes. This disconnect has consequences. When climate risks are not understood or anticipated, education systems remain reactive rather than prepared.

What climate literacy actually means

Climate literacy goes beyond knowing that global temperatures are rising. At its core, it enables students to understand how climate systems work, how human activity accelerates change, and how impacts differ across regions and communities.

A climate-literate student should be able to:

  • Understand basic climate science and local environmental processes
  • Interpret climate-related information and distinguish evidence from misinformation
  • Recognise climate risks specific to their geography, such as heat, floods or water stress
  • Understand adaptation strategies and everyday actions that reduce vulnerability
  • Connect climate change to livelihoods, health, migration and inequality

This kind of literacy is not about creating climate activists. It is about equipping young people with the knowledge to navigate a climate-altered world safely and responsibly.

Why climate literacy must begin before Class 10

Introducing climate literacy only in senior secondary classes is too late. By Class 10, learning pathways are already narrowing. Many students, especially from disadvantaged backgrounds, drop out before reaching higher grades. If climate education begins late, it misses precisely those children who are most exposed to climate risks.

Early adolescence is a formative period. Habits, values and worldviews begin to solidify. Introducing climate literacy before Class 10 allows environmental understanding to grow alongside foundational learning in science, geography and social studies.

Early exposure also shapes everyday behaviour. Practices such as water conservation, waste reduction, energy efficiency and food choices are far more likely to become lifelong habits when introduced early. Climate education at this stage is less about policy and more about lived action.

Equally important is safety. Climate change is making extreme weather more frequent and unpredictable. Students need practical knowledge on heat safety, flood response, water scarcity and disaster preparedness. In many parts of India, children are first responders within households during climate events. Without basic climate literacy, they remain unprepared and at risk.

A worrying gap in public understanding

Despite widespread exposure to climate impacts, understanding remains limited. A 2025 survey revealed that while large sections of the Indian population report being affected by climate change, only about 38 per cent clearly attribute it to human activity. This gap between experience and understanding is alarming.

Climate misinformation spreads easily, particularly in digitally connected but low-information environments. Without structured education, students are left to piece together knowledge from fragmented sources. This undermines informed decision-making and weakens public support for climate action.

India’s demographic profile makes this gap especially significant. The country is home to one of the world’s largest youth populations. Over the next two decades, this generation will shape energy use, urbanisation patterns, consumption and labour markets. Without climate literacy, India’s transition to renewable energy and sustainable development will face social and political resistance.

Policy intent versus classroom reality

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 recognises environmental education as a cross-cutting theme. It calls for integrating climate awareness across subjects and stages of schooling. However, implementation remains uneven.

In many schools, climate change appears as a single chapter in geography or environmental studies, disconnected from local realities. Teachers often lack training to translate abstract concepts into practical learning. Assessment systems prioritise rote memorisation over application or problem-solving.

There is also a sharp digital divide. While some urban schools experiment with STEM labs, climate simulations and project-based learning, many government schools struggle with basic infrastructure. Climate education risks becoming yet another axis of inequality unless it is designed with inclusion at its core.

Why climate literacy is a development issue

Climate literacy is not just about environmental protection. It is about development, equity and resilience. Children who understand climate risks are better equipped to protect their health, adapt livelihoods and participate in local decision-making.

In rural India, climate-literate students can support families in adopting water-saving practices, climate-resilient agriculture and disaster preparedness. In urban areas, they can influence energy use, waste management and mobility choices. Over time, this knowledge shapes community behaviour.

From an economic perspective, India’s future workforce will need to operate in sectors increasingly shaped by climate constraints, from agriculture and construction to energy and manufacturing. Climate literacy is therefore a workforce skill, not a niche subject.

The role of civil society: Smile Foundation’s approach

In this context, civil society organisations play a crucial role in bridging gaps between policy intent and ground reality. Smile Foundation’s work in education reflects an understanding that climate change is already shaping children’s lives and learning trajectories.

Through its flagship Mission Education programme, Smile Foundation integrates climate awareness and sustainability into everyday learning. Across hundreds of schools in multiple states, students engage with climate concepts through age-appropriate, context-specific modules. Topics such as renewable energy, water conservation, biodiversity loss and waste management are linked to local experiences rather than taught in abstraction.

Smart classrooms and STEM labs enable hands-on learning, allowing students to explore climate-resilient technologies and environmental science through experimentation. This approach helps demystify climate change and makes it tangible.

Importantly, Smile Foundation extends learning beyond classrooms. Community-based climate awareness campaigns encourage households to adopt energy-efficient practices and sustainable behaviours. Eco-clubs, exhibitions and student-led projects give children agency, allowing them to design solutions such as rainwater harvesting models or waste segregation systems.

In regions affected by climate-related disruptions, Smile Foundation’s mobile education units and technology-enabled learning models help ensure continuity. These interventions recognise that climate resilience in education is not only about content, but also about access and adaptability.

Educating for a climate-altered future

As climate impacts intensify, early climate literacy is no longer optional. It is a developmental necessity. Introducing climate education before Class 10 ensures that all students, including those who may not progress to higher education, are equipped with essential knowledge and skills.

India’s response to climate change will ultimately depend not only on policy and technology, but on public understanding and collective behaviour. Schools are one of the few institutions that reach nearly every child. Failing to use this space to build climate literacy would be a missed opportunity with long-term consequences.

By embedding climate education early, India can raise a generation that is not only aware of environmental risks but capable of adapting, innovating and leading. Programmes like those implemented by Smile Foundation demonstrate that climate literacy can be inclusive, practical and empowering.

In a country where climate change is already reshaping childhood itself, preparing children to understand and respond to this reality is not just an educational priority. It is a responsibility.

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Education

How Vital Are Higher Education Enrolments to India’s NEP Goals?

Skill development program of Smile Foundation
Sneha is a recipient of a merit-based scholarship from Smile Foundation to pursue engineering from a reputed college in Mumbai.

India stands at a pivotal moment in its economic and social journey. It is often described as a country on the brink of a demographic dividend, with one of the world’s youngest populations and a growing appetite for education and skills. But this promise comes with a deadline. Demographic advantage is not permanent, and whether India can convert this youthful population into a productive, skilled workforce depends largely on what happens in its higher education system over the next decade.

At the heart of this challenge lies a simple but consequential question: can India expand access to higher education while simultaneously improving its quality, relevance and outcomes?

Universities today are grappling with multiple pressures. Enrolment numbers in several central and state universities have stagnated or declined. Curricula in many disciplines remain outdated, infrastructure struggles to keep pace with modern learning needs and faculty shortages persist. At the same time, students entering higher education bring new expectations. They seek flexibility, employability, global exposure and relevance to a rapidly changing world of work. Navigating these competing demands will determine whether India’s higher education reforms succeed or falter.

The NEP’s Ambition and Why Higher Education Enrolments Matter

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 sets an ambitious target: achieving a Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of 50 per cent in higher education by 2035. This represents a significant leap from current levels and signals a shift in how education is positioned within India’s development strategy.

Higher enrolment is not an end in itself. It is a means to ensure that a larger share of India’s youth acquires the knowledge, adaptability and skills required for a knowledge-driven economy. As automation, artificial intelligence and technological disruption reshape industries, economies increasingly rely on workers who can learn continuously, think critically and operate in complex environments.

Without expanding higher education access, India risks leaving a large segment of its young population underprepared for emerging opportunities. This would weaken productivity, limit innovation and deepen existing inequalities.

Understanding the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) Bill

The proposed Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) Bill, expected to become law in 2025, is a key structural reform aimed at enabling the NEP’s vision. When the NEP was announced, it called for a fundamental rethinking of governance in higher education. The HECI Bill seeks to operationalise that shift.

At its core, the Bill aims to replace fragmented regulation with a unified framework. It proposes reducing bureaucratic complexity, granting institutions greater autonomy and ensuring accountability through mandatory accreditation. By standardising quality benchmarks and tracking institutional performance, the system is designed to direct funding and support toward institutions that need it most, particularly those serving disadvantaged regions and populations.

Beyond governance, the Bill emphasises people and systems. Faculty development, digital infrastructure and outcome-based learning are positioned as central priorities. The focus is not only on expanding enrolments but on strengthening the ecosystem that supports teaching, research and student success.

Another significant aspect is the push toward multidisciplinary education and industry relevance. The Bill encourages institutions to move away from rigid degree silos, enabling students to combine disciplines and acquire practical skills alongside academic knowledge. It also opens pathways for greater international collaboration, aligning Indian higher education with global academic and labour markets.

Why the Push for Higher Education Enrolments Is Urgent

The urgency to expand higher education enrolments stems from structural realities that extend far beyond universities.

First, secondary school completion rates remain uneven across regions and social groups. Many students drop out before becoming eligible for higher education, narrowing the pipeline of potential learners.

Second, limited growth in labour-intensive manufacturing has reduced employment options for school graduates. For many young people, higher education becomes the primary pathway to economic mobility.

Third, female labour force participation remains low, even in states with relatively high education levels. While more women are enrolling in higher education, many do not transition into the workforce. For families, education is still often viewed as a marker of social status or marital prospects rather than a route to sustained employment. Addressing enrolments without tackling these gendered barriers risks limiting the impact of educational expansion.

Fourth, the quality of school education directly shapes higher education outcomes. Underqualified teachers, learning gaps and exam-oriented teaching leave many students ill-prepared for university-level work. This contributes to high dropout rates and weak learning outcomes in higher education.

Despite these challenges, expanding enrolments carries transformative potential. Higher education has historically played a critical role in enabling social mobility for communities that were excluded from opportunity. For many first-generation learners, university access represents not just economic advancement but dignity, aspiration and a sense of belonging in a rapidly modernising society.

Evolving Expectations from Higher Education

Today’s students are not simply seeking degrees. They expect education to equip them for uncertain futures. This shift is visible globally and increasingly evident in India.

Artificial intelligence and automation are altering the nature of work. Lifelong employment within a single profession is becoming rare. As a result, learners value flexibility, modularity and continuous upskilling. Shorter courses, stackable credentials and opportunities to re-enter education after periods of work are becoming more attractive than traditional, linear degree pathways.

Universities worldwide are responding by offering blended and hybrid models that combine online and in-person learning. India must participate actively in this transition. A higher education system that allows students to pause, pivot and re-engage will be better suited to contemporary realities.

Digital Pathways and the Expansion of Access

Digital infrastructure offers one of the most promising avenues for expanding higher education access. For example, digital universities and online programmes can reach learners in regions where physical campuses are scarce. They also reduce costs and allow institutions to scale without proportionate increases in infrastructure.

India has begun to explore this potential. Online degrees, hybrid courses and industry-aligned programmes are gaining ground. When designed well, these models can ease pressure on traditional universities while offering learners skills aligned with evolving job markets.

However, digital expansion must be accompanied by quality assurance, robust assessments and learner support. Without these, digital education risks becoming a second-tier alternative rather than a genuine pathway to opportunity.

What Stakeholders Expect and What Must Improve

For reforms to succeed, the expectations of key stakeholders must be addressed.

State governments seek clarity on their roles within a unified regulatory framework. Higher education is a shared responsibility, and coordination between central and state authorities will be essential.

Educational institutions want reduced administrative burdens, faster decision-making and autonomy that is linked to performance rather than compliance. Many institutions struggle under layers of approval processes that slow innovation and responsiveness.

Industry partners are looking for deeper collaboration in designing curricula, assessments and training pathways. Employers increasingly value skills and adaptability over credentials alone.

At the same time, systemic challenges persist. Accreditation coverage remains uneven. Data systems across institutions lack consistency. Financial support mechanisms are not uniformly aligned with performance or need. If reforms do not address these gaps, institutions risk falling behind as demand for higher education continues to grow.

Higher Education Enrolments as a Measure of Equity and Opportunity

The narrative of India’s growth is inseparable from the question of who gains access to higher education. Enrolment figures are not just indicators of capacity. They reflect the inclusiveness of the system.

When higher education expands equitably, it enables participation from communities historically excluded by geography, caste, gender or income. It strengthens social mobility and builds a workforce capable of sustaining long-term growth.

However, expansion without attention to quality, relevance and outcomes risks creating credentials without capability. The challenge lies in balancing access with excellence.

Smile Foundation’s Work

Smile Foundation’s education interventions focus on strengthening the pipeline that feeds into higher education. Through its Mission Education programme, we work with children from underserved urban and rural communities to reduce learning gaps, improve retention and prevent early dropouts. By supporting students through foundational learning, remedial education and secondary schooling, the programme helps ensure that more young people reach the stage where higher education becomes a real possibility rather than a distant idea.

For many first-generation learners, financial barriers remain one of the strongest deterrents to pursuing higher studies. Smile Foundation’s Swabhiman scholarship initiatives address this constraint directly by providing merit-cum-need based support to students, particularly girls and young women, enabling them to complete schooling and transition into higher and technical education. By easing financial pressure on families, these scholarships help shift perceptions of higher education from a risky expense to a viable investment.

The Foundation also recognises that enrolment alone does not guarantee meaningful outcomes. Its focus on life skills, digital literacy and career-oriented exposure helps students develop the adaptability and confidence increasingly demanded by higher education institutions and the labour market. In doing so, Smile Foundation complements the NEP’s emphasis on holistic, multidisciplinary learning and employability.

As India works towards its goal of a 50 per cent Gross Enrolment Ratio by 2035, partnerships between government systems, educational institutions and civil society will be crucial. Organisations like Smile Foundation help bridge the gap between policy intent and lived reality, ensuring that higher education reforms translate into genuine access, sustained participation and upward mobility for students who have historically been left at the margins.

Looking Ahead

The NEP’s higher education enrolment targets and the HECI Bill together signal a recognition that incremental reform is no longer sufficient. India’s higher education system must evolve rapidly to meet the aspirations of its youth and the demands of a changing economy.

The coming decade will test whether governance reforms, digital expansion and curriculum innovation can translate into meaningful outcomes for students. Success will depend on sustained political commitment, institutional capacity and collaboration across sectors.

Higher education enrolments are a reflection of India’s ability to invest in its people, reduce inequality and harness its demographic potential. How the country responds now will shape not only its economic trajectory, but the futures of millions of young Indians seeking opportunity, dignity and purpose through education.

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The Early Onset of Mental Illness in Children

The Early Onset of Mental Illness in Children
The Early Onset of Mental Illness in Children

In July this year, a 15-year-old girl, a Class 10 student, allegedly died by suicide at her home. Police later revealed that she had been undergoing treatment for anxiety. The details were sparse, as they often are, and the news cycle moved on quickly. Yet incidents like this have become painfully familiar, in India and across the world. They point to a deeper, quieter crisis unfolding in childhood, one that is neither sudden nor isolated.

Across hospital outpatient departments, school counselling rooms and paediatric clinics, mental health professionals are reporting a troubling trend: children barely into their pre-teens are presenting with anxiety disorders, depression, behavioural challenges, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning disabilities and emotional dysregulation. What once appeared primarily in adolescence or adulthood is now surfacing much earlier, often before children have the language to articulate what they are experiencing.

This shift reflects broader changes in how children grow up today, shaped by social transformation, academic pressure, shrinking community spaces and an unprecedented level of digital immersion.

What the Numbers Tell Us

Multiple studies over the past decade have highlighted the scale of the issue. A 2014 community-based study suggested that between 7 and 10 per cent of Indian children may be living with some form of psychiatric disorder, while school-based samples often report significantly higher prevalence. According to estimates cited by mental health researchers, India may have close to 50 million children and adolescents experiencing mental health concerns.

The National Mental Health Survey (2015–16) found that approximately 7.3 per cent of adolescents aged 13 to 17 had a diagnosable mental disorder. More recent student surveys indicate a rise in emotional distress, with 11 per cent reporting symptoms of anxiety and 14 per cent experiencing severe mood fluctuations.

But statistics only offer a partial picture. Behind every percentage is a child struggling to concentrate in class, withdrawing from friendships or feeling overwhelmed by expectations they cannot meet. It is in these everyday struggles that mental illness takes root.

A Childhood Under Pressure

Indian childhood today looks markedly different from that of previous generations. Urbanisation has fractured extended family systems that once provided emotional buffering and supervision. Neighbourhood play has been replaced by structured schedules, tuition classes and screen-based entertainment. The space to be idle, curious or simply present has shrunk.

Academic competition has intensified sharply. Schools, particularly in urban and semi-urban areas, increasingly function as sites of performance and comparison rather than safe spaces for learning and growth. High-stakes examinations, constant assessments and parental expectations combine to create an environment where failure feels catastrophic, even at a young age.

Bullying adds another layer of vulnerability. It is no longer confined to classrooms or playgrounds. Online spaces extend humiliation, comparison and exclusion well beyond school hours. Social media platforms amplify unrealistic standards of success, appearance and popularity, often leaving children feeling inadequate or isolated.

Technology, while offering undeniable educational opportunities, plays a paradoxical role. Excessive screen time has been linked to disrupted sleep cycles, reduced physical activity and heightened anxiety. Algorithm-driven content can trap children in cycles of comparison and negative self-evaluation.

Doctors report that the COVID-19 pandemic further accelerated these trends. Prolonged isolation, loss of routine, family stress and exposure to illness and grief left many children emotionally dysregulated. For some, these difficulties never fully resolved once schools reopened.

The Weight of Silence and Stigma

Despite rising awareness, pathways to care remain deeply constrained. Stigma continues to shape how mental health is understood within families. Emotional distress is often dismissed as misbehaviour, indiscipline or a passing phase. Parents may fear judgement, social labelling or being blamed for their child’s struggles.

As a result, symptoms are frequently minimised until they escalate into crises. Children exhibiting anxiety-driven behaviours may be punished rather than supported. Neurodiversity is misunderstood. Emotional withdrawal is overlooked.

Compounding this is India’s severe shortage of child and adolescent mental health professionals. According to estimates, India has fewer than 0.3 psychiatrists per 100,000 people, and even fewer specialists trained to work with children. Large parts of the country lack access to child psychiatrists altogether, forcing families to rely on adult mental health services that are ill-equipped for paediatric needs.

This gap means that early warning signs are often missed, even though early intervention is one of the strongest predictors of recovery.

Why Early Onset Is Especially Concerning

Mental illness during formative years affects far more than emotional well-being. It disrupts learning, peer relationships, self-esteem and identity formation. Children struggling with untreated mental health conditions are more likely to experience academic difficulties, school dropout and social isolation.

Without support, these challenges compound over time, increasing the risk of chronic mental illness, substance use, self-harm and reduced economic participation in adulthood. Conversely, evidence consistently shows that early identification and timely intervention can dramatically improve outcomes.

This makes the current gaps in detection, referral and care especially troubling. The cost of inaction is borne not only by individuals, but by society at large.

Listening Earlier, Acting Sooner

Mental health professionals increasingly emphasise the importance of paying attention to subtle behavioural shifts. In an article for The Times of India, Dr Rajesh Sagar, Professor of Psychiatry at AIIMS, urged parents and teachers to watch for warning signs such as sudden withdrawal, irritability, mood swings, unexplained physical complaints and declining academic performance. Any expression of self-harm, he stressed, must be treated with urgency.

He also highlighted the role of everyday practices in supporting emotional stability. Regular physical activity, sports, hobbies, adequate sleep and balanced nutrition play a crucial role in mental well-being. Over-reliance on junk food and sugary drinks, particularly during exam periods, has been linked to increased irritability and behavioural problems.

The message is clear: mental health support does not begin in clinics alone. It begins in homes, classrooms and communities.

Policy Promises and Ground Realities

India has made policy commitments to child and adolescent mental health. The School Health and Wellness Programme under Ayushman Bharat includes mental health components. The National Education Policy acknowledges socio-emotional learning as integral to education.

However, implementation remains uneven. Many schools lack trained counsellors. Teachers often receive limited training in identifying mental health concerns. Screening tools are inconsistently applied, and referral pathways are unclear.

But there are signs of change. Cities such as Pune, Bengaluru and Kolkata have seen schools introduce regular mental health screenings and counsellor networks. Some states are integrating mental health modules into school health programmes. Paediatricians are beginning to include mental health questions during routine check-ups.

Parent-led conversations around neurodiversity, anxiety and therapy are also becoming more visible, particularly on social media. Topics that were once taboo are slowly entering mainstream discourse.

Reframing the Conversation around Mental Illness

These gradual shifts suggest a broader cultural re-learning. There is growing recognition that children’s minds are shaped continuously by their environments, relationships and daily experiences. Mental health is not a personal failing or a disciplinary issue. It is a reflection of how children navigate a rapidly changing world.

The early onset of mental illness among Indian children is therefore not merely a medical concern. It is a social mirror, reflecting inequality, pressure, isolation and gaps in support systems. Addressing it requires empathy as much as evidence, and coordination across families, schools, health systems and policy frameworks.

Where Civil Society Steps In: Smile Foundation’s Role

In a context where formal mental health systems remain overstretched, civil society organisations play a critical role in identifying risks early and building protective environments around children. Smile Foundation’s work recognises that mental health cannot be addressed in isolation. It is closely linked to education, nutrition, safety, family stability and a child’s sense of belonging.

Through its Mission Education programme, Smile Foundation works with children from vulnerable communities where stressors such as poverty, migration, food insecurity and disrupted schooling are common. By creating child-friendly learning spaces, the programme focuses not only on academic support but also on emotional well-being. Teachers and facilitators are trained to observe behavioural changes, encourage expression and create classrooms where children feel safe to speak and participate.

Smile Foundation also integrates health and nutrition support into its education programmes, acknowledging the strong link between physical well-being and mental health. Regular health check-ups, nutrition awareness and counselling help address some of the underlying factors that often exacerbate emotional distress in children.

Equally important is our engagement with families and communities. By working closely with parents and caregivers, Smile Foundation helps reduce stigma around mental health and encourages early help-seeking behaviour. Conversations around stress, anxiety and emotional development are gradually normalised, especially in communities where such discussions were previously absent.

In doing so, Smile Foundation contributes to a larger ecosystem of care, one that does not wait for crises to emerge but works quietly to prevent them. While these interventions cannot replace specialised mental health services, they play a vital role in early identification, emotional support and referral, particularly for children who would otherwise remain invisible within the system.

As India grapples with the early onset of mental illness among children, such community-rooted, integrated approaches will be essential. Addressing this challenge requires not only policy intent and clinical expertise, but also sustained, compassionate work on the ground, where children live, learn and grow.

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