Author: Smile Foundation

Every Engineer’s Day, we pause. We brush off our blueprints, applaud the tech innovators, the coders, the inventors, the problem-solvers. We celebrate Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, whose birthday falls on September 15, remembering a man who engineered bridges and dams—and perhaps, more importantly, engineered possibility.

But today, in 2025, India’s future doesn’t just need to honour engineers. It needs more of them — especially young people from underprivileged backgrounds, especially girls — who will not only build infrastructure but build innovation, equity, dreams.

This Engineer’s Day, the question is: how do we make engineering more than a dream for the few? How do we nurture engineers who will drive India forward? And how is Smile Foundation helping that happen?

The Power of Engineers in Nation-Building

Think of every road you drive, every app you tap, every hospital that stands where often there was only empty land. Engineers made those things happen. Civil engineers span bridges and railways; software engineers invent solutions for remote learning; electrical engineers light up villages; chemical engineers create medicines; mechanical engineers build machines that do the heavy lifting and robotics.

India aspires to be a global innovation hub. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 emphasises STEM education. Initiatives like Make in India, Digital India, Startup India lean heavily on enabling engineering talent. But policies on paper must translate into opportunities in labs, scholarships, mentorship and inclusive access.

Smile Foundation’s Scholarships: Facts You Can Stand On

Smile Foundation invests in future engineers.

• Under Smile Foundation’s Education Impact, there are “scholarships for deserving students … technical courses like engineering.” (Smile Foundation)
• In collaboration with Deutsche Bank, Smile offers engineering scholarships to meritorious girls from low-income families, covering tuition for four years at colleges in cities such as Bengaluru, Jaipur, Mumbai, Pune. (Smile Foundation)
• The scholarship includes not only financial aid but learning tools like laptops, industry exposure, domain/technical skills training, communication and employability skills, and placement assistance in the senior years of study.
• As of now, Smile’s scholarship programmes for engineering have benefited over 2,000 students through various donor-partner initiatives.

These are not minor interventions. They are acts of possibility—transforming a student’s “I hope I can afford college” into “I will become an engineer.”

Why Engineering from Margins Matters

When engineering is restricted by cost, geography or gender, the diversity of ideas shrinks. Women are underrepresented in technical roles; rural students may not even have labs or reliable electricity; first-generation learners may lack counsel or mentorship. Innovation suffers when voices, perspectives, experiences are missing.

Smile Foundation’s Mission Education centres work in 27 states, supporting over 120,000 children with educational access, including STEM and vocational exposure. Additionally, Smile has introduced STEM labs at 12 locations, DIY STEM kits, science/engineering exposure, coding, robotics in collaboration with institutions.

When a girl from a small town gets an engineering scholarship, receives domain training, a laptop, mentorship — that doesn’t just change her life. It changes the map of who India’s engineers look like. It changes what innovation feels like.

Beyond the Parade, Towards Praxis

What does Engineer’s Day mean, if not just speeches and good Instagram posts? It should also be about action:

• Recognising engineers from non-traditional backgrounds.
• Supporting scholarship programmes that cover all costs — not just tuition, but tools, travel, exposure.
• Ensuring labs not just exist, but function. Proper infrastructure, teaching staff trained in modern pedagogy.
• Encouraging women in engineering by setting up role models, mentorship, safe spaces.

Smile Foundation is doing many of these. The engineering scholarships with Deutsche Bank are one example. Another is Smile’s focus in education on STEM & experiential learning introducing inquiry, problem-solving and breaking away from rote.

Smiling in the Making

• Shreya, a student from a small town beneficiary of the Deutsche Bank-Smile scholarship, is now in her second year of engineering in Pune. She says studying circuits feels like poetry, now that she has both the materials and the confidence.
• Ayesha, another scholarship-holder, used to worry she’d drop out because her family couldn’t afford a laptop. Smile’s scholarship provided the laptop, mentorship support and she now tutors others in her engineering hostel.

These are proof that investment in engineers from underserved backgrounds works.

The Innovation Gap & What Engineers Must Fill

India’s challenges — urban congestion, climate change, renewable energy, AI governance, water scarcity need engineering solutions. But to solve them sustainably, engineers must come from everywhere: rural hearts, small towns, border areas, from girls, from minorities. Because those are the lived contexts in which some of the toughest problems lie.

SME engineers, industrial engineers, software engineers, civil, mechanical, electrical — they all converge. And as we see globally, countries that have inclusive engineering pipelines tend to innovate faster, build more resilient infrastructure, adapt more rapidly.

This Engineer’s Day, here are ways you can contribute to building engineering futures:

• Sponsor an engineering scholarship – even one scholarship can support tuition + tool costs for a student. Smile’s programme works with donors like Deutsche Bank and others. (Smile Foundation)
• Mentor – help students understand what engineering means, guide projects, support internships.
• Provide tools or labs – if you’re an organisation with capacity.
• Spread awareness – share stories of engineers from underserved backgrounds via social media, local schools, communities.

Give not just your applause, but your support. Give not just congratulations, but opportunity.

Walk into a government school in rural India. The classrooms are full, children are in their seats, teachers are at the blackboard. On paper, the numbers might look impressive: more than 96 percent of children aged 6 to 14 are enrolled in school.

But pause for a moment. Hand a Grade 5 child a Grade 2-level storybook and ask them to read. More often than not, they will stumble. Ask another to solve a simple subtraction problem. Chances are, they will look at you blankly.

This is the paradox at the heart of India’s education system. Children are in school, but many of them are not learning the basics. And those basics — what education experts call Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) — are the very skills that unlock every other stage of learning. Without them, the ladder of education becomes shaky and unreliable.

So why does FLN matter so much and why is the age of 10 such a critical milestone?

The Learning Crisis in Plain Numbers

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2023 tells us something sobering: nearly half of Grade 5 children in India still cannot read a simple Grade 2 text. In mathematics, the situation is just as troubling. Barely one in five Grade 3 students can solve a basic subtraction problem.

It’s not that children aren’t going to school — they are. But being present in a classroom does not guarantee learning.

COVID-19 only made this worse. Two years of school closures erased nearly a decade of slow progress in reading and arithmetic. By 2022, learning levels had slipped back to what they were in 2012. For children from rural and low-income households, where parents often lacked resources to support learning at home, the damage was even deeper.

In short: India’s schools are open, but for too many children, the doors to actual learning remain closed.

The Turning Point

Let’s put aside the data for a moment and think about childhood. Up to around age 8 or 9, children are in the stage of “learning to read.” They are decoding letters, sounds, words and numbers. By the time they reach age 10, something important happens: they are expected to flip that switch and begin “reading to learn.”

If that switch doesn’t happen, the consequences are serious. A child who cannot read fluently by Grade 3 struggles to keep up with science, social studies or even word problems in math. Their self-confidence takes a hit and they begin to disengage.

Research by education scholar J. Douglas Willms shows that students who leave primary school without adequate reading skills are much more likely to face difficulties all the way through secondary school. The effects spill over beyond academics: poor foundational skills are linked to low self-esteem, behavioural challenges and even higher risks of anxiety and depression.

The World Bank has gone as far as to call investment in foundational learning the single highest-return investment a country can make in human capital. For India, where millions of young people will enter the workforce in the coming decade, ensuring FLN by age 10 isn’t just an educational goal — it’s an economic and social imperative.

The Indian Context: Promise and Problems

India is not blind to this challenge. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 puts foundational literacy and numeracy right at the top of its priorities. It emphasises play-based and activity-based learning in early years, mother-tongue instruction and smaller class sizes where possible.

Building on that, the government launched the NIPUN Bharat Mission in 2021. Its goal? To ensure that every child in India can achieve FLN by the end of Grade 3, with a target year of 2026-27. The mission encourages early assessments, teacher training and close engagement with families.

On paper, this is exactly what India needs. But anyone who has spent time in a government school knows the hurdles: overcrowded classrooms, teachers who are under-trained in FLN pedagogy, children coming from homes where no one can read to them in the evenings and of course, the vast linguistic diversity that makes “one-size-fits-all” teaching almost impossible.

The truth is, schools alone cannot solve this. Families, communities and civil society all need to play a role.

What FLN Looks Like on the Ground: Stories of Change

This is where organisations like Smile Foundation step in. Through our Mission Education programme, Smile works in more than 2,000 villages across 26 states. The goal is simple yet ambitious: to make sure at least 70 percent of enrolled children achieve foundational literacy and numeracy.

But here’s the twist: Smile doesn’t teach children strictly by grade. Instead, we group them by skill level. That means a Grade 4 child struggling with reading won’t be lost in a class that has moved on to advanced material. The teaching meets the child where they are.

Language also matters. Smile Foundation prioritises instruction in the mother tongue during the early years, helping children grasp concepts faster and retain them longer. And critically, the programme doesn’t stop at the classroom. We bring in parents, school management committees and local officials, creating a supportive ecosystem around the child.

The results speak volumes. In one project under Smile’s Shiksha Na Ruke initiative in Gurugram, the percentage of Grade 3 children who could read simple sentences jumped from 38 percent at baseline to 72 percent after targeted FLN interventions. Writing skills improved from 36 percent to 93 percent.

These are stories of children who once sat silently in classrooms, now standing up and reading aloud with confidence.

Barriers We Must Confront

Even with inspiring models, India’s FLN journey faces stubborn obstacles.

• Teaching quality and training: Many teachers are not trained in age-appropriate, activity-based FLN methods. Teaching often defaults to rote memorisation.
• Language barriers: Millions of children start school in a language they don’t speak at home, making early learning unnecessarily difficult.
• Home environments: In rural and low-literacy households, parents cannot always support homework or provide books. This widens the gap between privileged and disadvantaged children.
• Assessment and remedial action: Too often, children who are struggling are not identified until much later. By then, catching up is much harder.
• Equity gaps: Girls, children with disabilities and those from tribal or minority language groups are especially at risk of being left behind.

Unless these barriers are systematically addressed, India will continue to see high enrolment rates but low actual learning.

What Can Be Done: A Roadmap for FLN by Age 10

So how do we ensure every child crosses the FLN milestone by age 10? Here are some essential steps:

1. Start early and focus on the first three grades. Invest in pre-primary education so children arrive at school ready to learn. Prioritise play, storytelling and numeracy activities in the first years.
2. Teach in the child’s language. Research shows children learn best in their mother tongue in early years. Building literacy in the home language provides a foundation for learning additional languages later.
3. Support teachers, not just students. Train teachers in activity-based methods, give them access to high-quality teaching-learning materials and provide continuous mentoring.
4. Assess early and often. Simple, classroom-friendly assessments can help identify struggling learners by the end of Grade 1, so remedial support can begin immediately.
5. Engage families and communities. Equip parents with simple reading and counting activities. Run community reading sessions. Show families why FLN matters for their child’s future.
6. Leverage civil society partnerships. Scale up proven models like Smile Foundation’s Mission Education, which combine classroom support with community mobilisation. Government alone cannot do it all.
7. Fund FLN like the national priority it is. Budgets must reflect the urgency. Investing in early learning is not a cost — it is the most cost-effective way to secure India’s human capital future.

Why FLN Matters Beyond the Classroom

Foundational literacy and numeracy are not just about reading textbooks or solving sums. They are about agency.

A child who can read is a child who can understand a medicine label, apply for a job, or read about their rights. A child who is numerate can manage money, measure ingredients or compare prices. These are life skills as much as academic skills.

Economically, the stakes are immense. The World Bank estimates that if all children in low- and middle-income countries, including India, acquired basic reading skills, global poverty could be cut by 12 percent. In India, where millions will join the labour force each year, a failure to achieve FLN translates into lost productivity, lower wages and weaker competitiveness.

Socially, FLN is about equity. When the poorest and most marginalised children fail to learn to read or count by age 10, the gap between them and their peers only widens. Ensuring universal FLN is thus not just an education target — it is a matter of justice.

The Bottom Line

By the age of 10, a child should be able to pick up a book, read with understanding and solve a simple math problem. That is the bare minimum we owe them. Yet today, millions of Indian children are being denied even this.

The good news is that we know what works. Early childhood education, mother-tongue instruction, teacher training, regular assessments, parental engagement and community-based programmes like those led by Smile Foundation are already showing results. What’s needed is the will to scale these solutions quickly and equitably.

India has set itself a deadline through the NIPUN Bharat Mission: 2026-27. That is not far away. The question is not whether we can achieve foundational literacy and numeracy by age 10, but whether we choose to make it the national priority it deserves to be.

Because when every child in India can read and count by the age of 10, the ripple effects will reach far beyond classrooms — into families, workplaces and the future of the nation itself.

At first glance, the Indian school system looks like a success story. Primary enrolment is nearly universal, with over 95% of children stepping into classrooms by age six. The country has built thousands of new schools, trained teachers and rolled out free textbooks and midday meals. But, in many places, somewhere between a girl’s first letter in Class 1 and her teenage years in Class 9 or 10, something goes terribly wrong.

She disappears.

Across the globe, nearly four in 10 adolescent girls fail to complete their upper secondary education. In India, the number is starker: nearly 40% of girls drop out before reaching Class 10 (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2023). These numbers reveal a broken promise. Secondary education is more than just the next rung in the ladder; it’s the critical gateway to agency, employment, delayed marriage and dignity.

So why does the dropout rate spike precisely when girls need education the most? And what can be done to fix it?

Why Secondary Education Matters for Girls

Secondary education is where the magic, and the hard reality, begins.

Primary school teaches children to read, write and calculate. Secondary school, by contrast, prepares them to think critically, solve problems and specialise. It determines streams of study, vocational pathways and higher education opportunities.

For girls, finishing secondary school is one of the strongest predictors of empowerment:

• Economic independence: Completing secondary school increases women’s lifetime earnings significantly. The World Bank estimates each additional year of schooling raises wages by 10–20% (World Bank, 2022).
• Health benefits: A Lancet study shows that each additional year of education lowers adult mortality risk by 2%. Women who finish secondary school are more likely to survive childbirth and raise healthier children.
• Social outcomes: Staying in school delays early marriage, reduces the risk of domestic violence and fosters confidence in civic participation.

The cascading effects are undeniable. UNICEF calls secondary education for girls the “most cost-effective investment” a society can make in breaking intergenerational poverty. However, despite these benefits, the path to completing it remains steep, rocky and for many, impossible.

The Fragile Transition from Primary to Secondary

Why do dropout rates climb so sharply at this stage? The answer lies in the fragile transition years — from childhood to adolescence.

Primary schools are often located close to home, sometimes even within villages. By Class 6, however, many children must travel farther for secondary schools. Distances lengthen and safety becomes an issue. The curriculum grows more demanding, but academic support rarely keeps pace. And adolescence itself brings added layers of menstruation, social pressures and household responsibilities that families often interpret as reasons to pull girls out.

Families that tolerated six years of schooling for daughters suddenly balk at the added costs of uniforms, transport and exam fees. With boys still seen as future breadwinners, the choice of who stays in school and who drops out too often follows predictable gendered lines.

Breaking Down the Barriers

Let’s unpack the forces driving this exodus of girls from classrooms.

1. Socio-Cultural Norms

At the heart of the dropout crisis are deep-rooted cultural expectations.

Child marriage remains a major driver. According to UNICEF, India has the largest number of child brides in the world, accounting for one-third of the global total. Research by Girls Not Brides finds that every additional year of secondary schooling reduces the likelihood of child marriage by 6%. But, in many rural communities, the pressure of marriage and childbirth looms large as soon as a girl enters her teens.

Household responsibilities also cut into study time. Cooking, caregiving and cleaning are still disproportionately assigned to girls. Families view daughters’ education as a poor investment since they will marry into another family. Sons, meanwhile, are groomed for economic roles. The result? Girls’ education remains expendable when household resources are stretched.

2. Economic Barriers

Money, or the lack of it, is another wall.

Secondary education introduces new expenses: uniforms, books, higher fees, exam costs and transport. Even when tuition is nominal, hidden costs add up. A family struggling to afford food and shelter weighs the short-term economic relief of pulling a girl from school against the long-term (and abstract) gains of keeping her in.

Girls’ labour is also central to family economies. In rural India, adolescent girls are often expected to help in agriculture, tend animals or support siblings at home. For poor families, the economic logic of immediate labour outweighs the promise of future wages.

Generational poverty also creates a dangerous perception: “Why invest in girls when they will leave after marriage?” This thinking erodes motivation to finance secondary education.

3. Safety and Accessibility

Safety is the silent deterrent.

Secondary schools are often miles away, requiring long walks or unsafe bus rides. Harassment on the way to school including verbal, physical or sexual abuse is a real threat. Surveys find that a large number of girls drop out due to abuse.

For parents, safety fears translate into school withdrawal. The solution seems easier: keep daughters at home.

4. School Infrastructure and Quality

Even when girls reach school, conditions often drive them away.

• Sanitation: Globally, only 47% of schools have adequate water and 46% have proper toilets. In India, too many schools lack private, functional toilets for girls. Managing menstruation becomes a nightmare. A UNESCO study found that one in ten girls in sub-Saharan Africa misses school during menstruation up to 20% of the academic year. India shows similar patterns.
• Female teachers: Their absence makes classrooms less comfortable for adolescent girls, particularly in conservative areas.
• Teaching quality: Overcrowded classrooms, outdated curricula and uninspiring teaching leave girls disengaged. When education feels irrelevant, motivation crumbles.

5. Policy and Implementation Gaps

India has strong policies on paper. Scholarships, free uniforms, midday meals, laws against child marriage — all exist. But the devil is in implementation.

• Many scholarships never reach their intended beneficiaries because of bureaucratic hurdles or lack of awareness.
• Child marriage laws are unevenly enforced, especially in rural pockets.
• Pregnant or parenting girls often find no legal or institutional support to return to school.

UNESCO monitoring shows that in 63% of countries, legal protections for pregnant or married girls to continue education are absent. Without enforcement, policies remain lofty words, not lifelines.

The Human Side: A Teenage Girl’s Choice

Consider the case of Rina, a 14-year-old from Madhya Pradesh. She excelled in primary school, often topping her class. But the nearest secondary school was five kilometres away. The journey involved walking through fields where harassment was common. Her father worried. Her mother needed help at home. The family could not afford bus fare. At 15, Rina was married to a local shopkeeper.

Her story is not rare but painfully ordinary. Each dropout represents a fork in the road: one path leading to opportunity, the other to curtailed potential.

Smile Foundation’s Work

• Mission Education: With over 700 centres, it supports children aged 3–18, focusing on secondary-level retention for girls. More than 44,000 girls have received in-school vocational education, blending academics with practical skills.
• Scholarships: Over 2,000 scholarships help girls pursue secondary and higher education, especially in STEM and vocational fields.
• Swabhiman Programme: Tackles menstrual stigma by providing sanitary products, health awareness and safe spaces, ensuring girls don’t miss school during their periods.
• Infrastructure & STEM Labs: Investments in sanitation, digital classrooms, labs and sports equipment make schools inclusive and engaging.
• Teacher Training: Capacity building equips teachers to support adolescent girls better, fostering classroom environments that encourage retention.

These interventions don’t just keep girls in school — they transform the experience from survival to empowerment.

Holistic Solutions

Fixing dropout among girls in secondary education isn’t about a single silver bullet. It requires layered, holistic action:

1. Bring Schools Closer: Build more secondary schools in rural areas; provide safe transport options.
2. Address Safety: Enforce zero tolerance for harassment; community patrols and safe routes for girls.
3. Invest in Sanitation: Private toilets and menstrual hygiene management in every school.
4. Financial Incentives: Conditional cash transfers and scholarships that directly reward families for girls’ secondary completion.
5. Cultural Shifts: Campaigns that normalise education over early marriage.
6. Mentorship & Female Teachers: Role models matter. Hiring and training more women educators is key.
7. Policy Enforcement: Strengthen monitoring of child marriage, scholarship delivery and re-entry policies for young mothers.

Why This Matters for All of Us

The question is not just why dropout spikes among girls in secondary education. The question is what it costs us as a society when it does.

Every girl who leaves school too soon represents lost productivity, lost innovation and lost leadership. McKinsey Global Institute estimates that closing gender gaps in workforce participation could add $770 billion to India’s GDP by 2025. Secondary education is the linchpin.

Educated mothers raise healthier children. Educated daughters lift entire families. Educated women fuel economies.

The Promise of Secondary Education

We know why girls drop out. We know what it costs. And we know what works.

The challenge is commitment. It’s whether families, communities, policymakers and civil society are ready to make secondary education for girls not just a right, but a reality.

Because when a girl finishes secondary school, it’s a victory for healthier families, stronger economies and more equal societies.