Smile Foundation India
SUPPORT A CAUSE
Logo
Smile Foundation India
DONATE NOW

Author: Smile Editorial Team

Categories
Women Empowerment

Self-Help Groups and Rural Livelihoods: Collective Action Supports Women’s Economic Participation

Women entrepreneurship

Summary

  • Self-help groups (SHGs) help rural women pool savings, access credit and support one another’s livelihood efforts.
  • Collective action can strengthen women’s financial independence, business skills and confidence in making decisions.
  • Mentorship, financial literacy, market access and institutional linkages help women build more sustainable enterprises.
  • Government initiatives such as DAY-NRLM and SHE-LEAPS aim to strengthen SHG-led livelihoods and enterprise development.
  • Smile Foundation’s Swabhiman programme supports women through entrepreneurship development, financial literacy and livelihood opportunities.
The importance of self-help groups in women entrepreneurship

Bhawna’s family survived on two incomes. There was her father’s work as a sewage cleaner and her own job, until both dried up within months of each other. Then stepped in Smile Foundation’s Swabhiman programme, which looked at the pile of old clothes in Bhawna’s house and saw something nobody else had, that is the raw material. Within weeks, Bhawna was making fifty masks a day, selling them through contacts her coordinator helped her build.

A few hundred kilometres away, in the village of Modgaon in Maharashtra’s Palghar district, Ranjana was building something similar from scratch. Her poultry farm, started during the pandemic changed how she saw herself.

“I feel economically independent but also empowered to make my own decisions,” she says, already planning to scale up.

And in a kitchen that once served 15 people with a handful of borrowed vessels, Shailaja and four other women have spent 16 years building a catering business that now feeds up to 250 people at a sitting, including, on some days, students at Azim Premji University.

Behind each story sits the same mechanism: a self-help group, and the collective support that comes with it. This is what self-help groups and rural livelihoods look like when they actually work.

What Self-Help Groups Actually Do

Self-help group is a simple idea which begins with a handful of women, usually ten to twenty, who pool small savings, lend to each other and back one another’s livelihood efforts. No collateral, no paperwork most rural households could never produce, no bank manager deciding who’s “creditworthy” enough.

The model has been around since the 1980s, when it first took shape as DWCRA groups, before NABARD began linking these groups to formal banks in the early 1990s. Under DAY-NRLM since 2011, that linkage has become one of the largest financial inclusion efforts anywhere in the world. According to the Journal of Women Empowerment and Studies (2025), India’s SHG-bank linkage network has grown from roughly 500 groups at its outset to close to 9 million SHGs today, drawing in nearly 100 million women.

What makes SHGs different from a straightforward loan is the group itself. Bhawna needed capital and Smile Foundation to spot an opportunity in a pile of old clothes. 

Where Collective Action Shows Up and and How It’s Actually Built

It’s tempting to measure SHGs purely by the money moving through them. For FY2024, the SHG-bank linkage programme disbursed loans worth over ₹2.09 lakh crore. It held savings with banks crossing ₹65,000 crore, with disbursement up 44 percent on the previous year and non-performing assets down 27 percent. This is indeed a sign the model is scaling without becoming riskier The more useful question is what actually makes collective action work on the ground.

Pooling savings and capital internally, first: Before a single rupee of bank credit arrives, SHGs build a habit of small, regular group savings. This internal fund does two things at once: it builds a credit history the group can take to a bank, and it gives members a source of “soft” emergency money to cover a medical bill or school fee, without resorting to a moneylender. It’s the same principle behind the VSLA (Village Savings and Loan Association) model used by cooperatives like KANBAOCU in Ghana, where pooled weekly contributions fund both business capital and emergency loans for members.

Mentorship and peer learning within the group. Groups that last, like Shailaja’s sixteen-year-old catering collective, tend to have an informal division of roles. There’s someone who’s better with accounts, someone who handles orders, someone who trains newer members. Smile Foundation’s Entrepreneurship Development Programme formalises exactly this, teaching members to manage money and plan for growth rather than simply survive month to month.

Deliberate convergence with local institutions. SHGs work best when they’re linked to panchayats, banks and block-level officials. This is where awareness of schemes, priority in local development plans, and smoother loan processing actually happen, rather than being left to chance.

Market and skill linkages beyond the group itself. Bhawna was connected to a buyer, and that was a turning point. Linking a product to a market is often the difference between a livelihood activity and a one-off income boost.

Risk-pooling during shocks. The pandemic tested this directly: SHGs across India pivoted into mask and PPE production, ran community kitchens for stranded migrant workers, and kept local supply chains moving — Kerala’s Kudumbashree network alone ran thousands of such kitchens when formal systems buckled.

This pattern to save together, learn together, link outward, absorb shocks together, isn’t unique to India. In Ethiopia’s Amhara region, women who joined honey-production cooperatives alongside informal self-help groups earned 81 percent more than women working alone, largely because the cooperative gave them access to better prices and bulk buyers they could never have reached individually. In the Philippines, a coffee-growing collective that began as a village effort to fund a shared water system pooled just USD 20 per family to start, and grew, over a decade, into an enterprise worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. The mechanism is the same wherever it works. It’s the linking along with the lending that turns a group of women into a livelihood engine.

The Digital Layer: SHE-LEAPS

The newest addition to this ecosystem arrived in June 2026, when the government launched SHE-LEAPS (Self-Help Entrepreneur-Livelihoods and Enterprise Application for Prosperity and Sustainability) at the Rashtriya Gramin Vikas Sammelan in New Delhi. Built by Digital India Corporation under the LokOS system, it gives SHG-linked enterprises a single platform to track performance, access markets, and plug into formal value chains — precisely the “market linkage” step that often happens informally. It now has a shot at happening systematically.

It’s also designed to power the Lakhpati Didi mission, whose target has just been raised from 3 crore to 6 crore women, backed by a planned ₹10 lakh crore outlay over five years.

What Still Holds Women Back

None of this erases the challenges that persist on the ground. Many SHG women remain unaware of the government schemes meant for them. Bookkeeping and digital literacy remain thin in remote areas. Resistance from within households is still common, and local banking or panchayat cooperation remains patchy in places. Collective action has moved the needle, but closing these gaps is where the next phase of progress needs to focus.

Bhawna, Ranjana and Shailaja needed a group of women willing to back them, and a system patient enough to let that backing compound over time. That, in the end, is what self-help groups and rural livelihoods have quietly built across India.

FAQs

1. What is a self-help group (SHG)?

A self-help group is a community-based group, often comprising 10–20 women, who pool small savings, provide loans to members and support one another’s livelihood activities. SHGs can also help members access formal banking, training and government schemes.

2. How do self-help groups support rural livelihoods?

SHGs help women access small amounts of capital, develop business skills, share knowledge and build connections with buyers and institutions. These resources can help women start or expand enterprises and make their livelihoods more sustainable.

3. How do self-help groups promote women’s economic empowerment?

By improving access to savings, credit, financial literacy and income-generating opportunities, SHGs can strengthen women’s economic independence. Working collectively can also help women build confidence, participate in decisions and negotiate challenges that might be harder to address individually.

4. What is the role of the DAY-NRLM scheme in supporting SHGs?

The Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana–National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM), launched in 2011, supports rural poor households, particularly women, in building strong community institutions and improving access to financial services and sustainable livelihood opportunities.

5. Why are market linkages important for women-led enterprises?

Producing goods or developing a service does not guarantee a sustainable income. Market linkages connect women entrepreneurs with buyers, suppliers and wider value chains, helping them reach customers, generate regular sales and grow their businesses.

6. What is SHE-LEAPS, and how can it help self-help groups?

SHE-LEAPS stands for Self-Help Entrepreneur-Livelihoods and Enterprise Application for Prosperity and Sustainability. The digital platform is designed to help SHG-linked enterprises track performance, access markets and connect with formal value chains.

7. How does Smile Foundation support women’s empowerment through Swabhiman?

Smile Foundation’s Swabhiman programme takes an integrated approach to women’s empowerment, combining health, education, livelihoods and entrepreneurship. Its interventions include entrepreneurship development, financial and digital literacy, business support and market access to help women pursue and sustain income-generating activities.

Sources:

Categories
Health

Beyond Distance: What Really Determines Healthcare Access?

Making Healthcare System in India a Major Agenda for G20 2023
Making Healthcare System in India a Major Agenda for G20 2023

A healthcare facility can be close enough to walk to and still feel out of reach. The distance between a person and a doctor is not always measured in kilometres. It can be the three hours spent waiting for a consultation, the medicine that is not available at the pharmacy, the cost of losing a day’s wages, the referral to another hospital across town or simply the feeling that nobody will listen once you get there. This is why the presence of a health centre, on its own, tells us surprisingly little about whether people actually have healthcare access.

Healthcare access has traditionally been discussed through these more visible markers: the number of facilities, the availability of doctors, the distance patients have to travel and whether essential medicines and services are available. But the experience of seeking care is shaped by a much wider set of circumstances. A government hospital may offer free treatment and still be avoided if patients have previously encountered long queues, confusing procedures or dismissive treatment. A health scheme may cover a particular service and yet remain underused when people do not know they are entitled to it or cannot figure out how to claim it. 

The World Health Organization’s work on unmet healthcare needs reflects this broader understanding, identifying availability, accessibility and acceptability among the factors that determine whether healthcare actually reaches people. The distinction is important because access to healthcare does not become a reality simply because a facility has been built. People have to be able to reach it, afford it, understand it and, perhaps most importantly, trust that seeking care will lead to something better. 

Healthcare access

When Availability Does Not Mean Access 

The Indian healthcare system illustrates this gap between availability and healthcare access rather clearly. The country has a large public health infrastructure, ranging from sub-centres and primary health centres to community health centres and district hospitals. However, people frequently move between public and private providers, or bypass public facilities altogether.

According to NSSO’s 2017–18 Social Consumption of Health survey, around 60 per cent of hospitalisations and 70 per cent of outpatient services were delivered by the private sector, excluding antenatal care and deliveries. This is not simply a story of people preferring private healthcare. It also reflects how public healthcare is experienced. WHO’s demand-side assessment of primary healthcare in Assam found that only about 11.5 per cent of rural households and 4 per cent of urban households sought outpatient care at or below the community health-centre level, pointing to a substantial gap between the existence of primary-care facilities and their utilisation. 

The study identified factors such as quality of care and out-of-pocket expenditure alongside other demand- and supply-side determinants. The distinction is pertinent because a narrow understanding of access can place responsibility on the patient: the facility is there, so why aren’t people using it? A broader understanding barriers to healthcare access asks what happens when the patient actually enters the system. 

Trust as foundation for healthcare access

Trust is rarely listed alongside doctors, beds, medicines and diagnostic equipment as a component of healthcare infrastructure. Yet it can determine whether any of those resources are actually used. Patients make decisions under considerable uncertainty. They may not know whether a symptom is serious, whether a doctor has correctly diagnosed them, whether a prescribed test is necessary, or whether they will receive the medicine they were promised.

WHO’s health-system review of India notes that information asymmetry is a major challenge: patients may not know what services a facility provides, what they are entitled to, what treatment will cost or which facilities are covered by government schemes. This creates a major hindrance. Healthcare accessibility, therefore, is also shaped by how clearly the system communicates with the people it is meant to serve.

A patient who has previously spent an entire day waiting, been sent from one counter to another, found medicines unavailable or felt humiliated by staff may decide that seeking care is not worth the trouble next time. The decision can appear irrational if viewed only through the lens of geographical access. It becomes considerably more understandable when healthcare access is viewed as an experience. 

Reimagining affordability 

Recent WHO work on tribal health navigators in Karnataka makes this particularly visible. The organisation describes how complicated registration, pharmacy, laboratory and referral processes can make hospitals difficult to navigate, particularly for communities with limited prior exposure to formal institutions. The account also documents how experiences of discrimination and hostility can undermine trust in government institutions. This suggests that improving utilisation cannot always mean simply adding another facility.

Sometimes the intervention has to be directed at the relationship between the institution and the person entering it.The quality of interaction matters because healthcare is not merely a technical transaction. It involves vulnerability. Patients have to disclose bodily symptoms, financial circumstances, reproductive histories, mental distress and other intimate information to strangers. If they anticipate judgement or dismissal, they may delay care or seek alternatives. 

Gender can make this particularly consequential. Women may face restrictions on mobility, dependence on family members for money or transport, concerns about being examined by male providers, or the expectation that their own health problems should be secondary to household responsibilities. For adolescents, older people, people with disabilities and marginalised communities, the problem can similarly involve whether a facility feels socially navigable rather than simply geographically reachable. The result is a form of invisible exclusion. A person may technically have a hospital nearby while lacking the practical freedom, confidence or institutional support required to use it. 

Financial access also extends beyond the consultation fee. Even when free, a patient may have to pay for transport, diagnostic tests, medicines unavailable at the facility, food during a hospital visit or lost wages from taking time away from work. India’s reliance on private healthcare makes this particularly significant.

NITI Aayog has noted that the private sector’s substantial role is associated with high out-of-pocket expenditure and weaker financial protection. Financial hardship can consequently affect healthcare decisions before a patient ever reaches the point of treatment. For a daily-wage worker, say for instance, ‘free healthcare’ may not mean free healthcare if accessing it requires losing a day’s income.

For a woman dependent on another household member for transport, a hospital appointment may involve negotiating permission as well as arranging a journey. Access to healthcare is consequently shaped by the social and economic conditions surrounding the facility. 

Bringing Healthcare Closer to Communities

The question of healthcare access is ultimately a question of whether people can use care when they need it. This is where community-based healthcare models can play an important role, particularly for people who may face financial, geographical or social barriers to formal health facilities.

Smile Foundation’s healthcare work is built around this last-mile challenge. Through its healthcare initiatives, including Smile on Wheels, the organisation takes primary healthcare closer to underserved communities, particularly those in remote and difficult-to-reach areas. The approach combines preventive, promotive and curative healthcare with health awareness, helping communities access services without having to navigate the full burden of travelling to distant facilities.

The Science of Kindness: How Volunteering Benefits Mental Health

The model is deliberately broader than treating illness. Community-based health services can include health screenings, consultations, referrals, medicines, maternal and child health support, awareness on hygiene and sanitation, and information that helps people recognise when and where to seek care. In this sense, the intervention is not simply about putting a doctor closer to a community. It is also about reducing some of the uncertainty and practical barriers that can prevent people from entering the healthcare system in the first place.

That distinction matters for healthcare access. A person who has limited income, cannot easily afford transport, is unfamiliar with formal health institutions or has previously delayed treatment may need more than a facility to be physically available. They may need information, reassurance, screening, referral support and a point of contact they recognise and trust.

Smile Foundation’s healthcare programmes also demonstrate why health cannot be separated from the other conditions that shape people’s lives. For children in underserved communities, for instance, illness, nutrition, hygiene and education can directly affect one another. Healthcare interventions therefore work alongside broader community development efforts rather than operating as an isolated service.

The larger lesson is that improving healthcare access does not always begin with building more infrastructure. Sometimes it begins by understanding why people are not reaching the infrastructure that already exists, and then designing services around those realities.

Designing for use

The challenge for healthcare systems is to move from building capacity to building confidence in that capacity. This means paying attention to the small institutional experiences that determine whether people return. Health workers can also play an important role as navigators by helping patients understand and move through complicated health systems. Similarly, primary healthcare reforms need to consider what communities actually want from their local facilities rather than assuming that proximity automatically creates demand.

WHO’s demand-side studies in India specifically examine why individuals choose particular providers and what can reduce unmet healthcare needs. Digital tools may help with some of these gaps, but technology cannot substitute for trust. Telemedicine, appointment systems and digital health records can reduce certain logistical barriers, but they cannot by themselves resolve experiences of discrimination, poor communication or unreliable treatment. 

In a nutshell, healthcare utilisation is not only a question of whether treatment exists. It is a question of whether people believe that entering the system will lead somewhere useful. A clinic becomes healthcare infrastructure only when people can reach it, afford it, understand it and feel sufficiently respected and confident to return. The shift from treatment to trust is therefore not a soft addition to healthcare policy. It changes how healthcare access itself is understood.

If the objective is universal healthcare, the measure cannot stop at counting facilities, doctors or beds. It must also ask a more difficult question: when people need care, do they believe the system will actually care for them?

Donate for our healthcare programme here!

FAQs

1. What is healthcare access?
Healthcare access refers to people’s ability to reach, afford, understand and use health services when they need them. It includes more than the physical availability of hospitals, doctors and medicines and can also be shaped by quality of care, trust, information and social circumstances.

2. Why does having a healthcare facility nearby not guarantee access?
A nearby facility may still be difficult to use because of long waiting times, unavailable medicines, complicated procedures, referral requirements, costs or previous negative experiences. Physical proximity is only one part of healthcare access.

3. What are the main barriers to healthcare access?
Barriers can include distance, out-of-pocket costs, lost wages, transport difficulties, long queues, limited information, unavailable medicines, complicated referral systems and concerns about the quality or acceptability of care.

4. How does trust affect healthcare utilisation?
Trust can influence whether people seek care, follow medical advice and return to a facility. Experiences such as poor communication, discrimination, long waits or feeling dismissed can discourage people from using healthcare services in the future.

5. Is free healthcare always affordable?
Not necessarily. Even when consultation or treatment is free, people may have to pay for transport, medicines, diagnostic tests, food or other expenses. Missing work to attend an appointment can also create a significant financial cost, particularly for daily-wage workers.

6. How do gender and social circumstances affect healthcare access?
Women and other marginalised groups can face additional barriers, including limited mobility, dependence on others for money or transport, concerns about privacy or examination, discrimination and household responsibilities. These factors can make healthcare difficult to use even when a facility is geographically close.

7. What is the difference between healthcare availability and healthcare access?
Availability refers to whether healthcare facilities, providers, medicines and services exist. Access goes further by asking whether people can actually reach, afford, understand and comfortably use those services.

8. Can digital healthcare improve access?
Digital tools such as telemedicine, online appointments and digital health records can reduce some logistical barriers. However, they cannot replace the need for respectful communication, reliable treatment, trust and equitable access to physical healthcare when those are required.

9. How can healthcare systems improve access?
Improving access requires more than building facilities. Health systems can simplify procedures, improve communication, ensure medicine availability, reduce financial barriers, strengthen patient navigation and respond to the experiences and needs of the communities they serve.

10. Why is healthcare utilisation important when measuring access?
Counting hospitals, doctors or beds shows what a health system has available, but utilisation provides a better indication of whether people are actually using those services. Understanding why people choose, avoid or discontinue particular forms of care can reveal barriers that infrastructure statistics alone cannot capture.

Categories
Education Insights

What Does It Mean to Be “Ready to Learn” 

Child literacy for children - Smile Foundation

A child can arrive at the school gate in a crisp uniform, a new pair of shoes and a school bag packed with sharpened pencils, and still not be ready to learn. They may know their alphabet but be hungry by mid-morning; know how to count but struggle to concentrate because they have not slept well; be able to recite a poem but remain too anxious to speak in front of a classroom. Even the seemingly simple act of sitting through a lesson depends on a series of conditions that exist well beyond the classroom.

This is what makes the question of being “ready to learn” more complicated than asking whether a child is prepared for Class 1. For decades, school readiness has often been framed as a set of abilities that children are expected to acquire before entering formal education: recognising letters and numbers, following instructions, sitting still, communicating clearly and adjusting to classroom routines. But this framing can quietly turn readiness into a test that the child must pass. It places the burden on children and families while making the conditions in which children grow and learn almost invisible.

Early childhood research offers a broader understanding. UNICEF India describes early childhood development not simply in terms of academic preparedness, but as a state in which a child is adequately nourished, physically healthy, mentally alert, emotionally secure, socially competent and ready to learn. Nutrition, healthcare, safety, responsive caregiving and opportunities for stimulation are therefore not peripheral to education; they are part of its foundation. In other words, readiness does not begin at the school gate. It begins much earlier: in the food a child eats, the sleep they get, the safety they experience, the conversations they have and the adults who respond when they reach out. 

The Socio-emotional Needs of Children from Low-income Families: Ready to learn

Readiness begins before the classroom 

The distinction between being ready for school and being ready to learn is important. School readiness usually refers to the knowledge, skills and behaviours that help a child participate successfully in a formal learning environment. Readiness to learn, however, is broader. The India Early Childhood Education Impact Study notes that while school readiness concerns preparation for a structured educational setting, readiness to learn is a characteristic that develops from birth.It shifts the focus from what a child is expected to know before school to the conditions that make learning possible in the first place. 

A toddler who is regularly spoken to, encouraged to explore, read to, played with and responded to is already developing the foundations of language and cognition. A child sorting household objects by size, asking why the sky changes colour, counting biscuits or negotiating the rules of a game is already engaging in forms of mathematical and social learning. These activities may not resemble a worksheet, but they develop capacities that formal education later builds upon. The early years therefore matter not simply because children need to be taught before they enter school, but because development itself is cumulative.

UNICEF identifies ages zero to eight as a particularly important period in which the foundations of later learning are established. This is why quality early childhood education is associated with improved learning in the early primary grades and lower likelihood of repetition and dropout. 

Readiness cannot be simply reduced to knowing the alphabet or writing one’s name. Instead of treating readiness as a narrow academic category, we need to assess whether children aged four to eight covered four broad domains: early language, early numeracy, cognitive development, and social and emotional development. It includes activities such as recognising emotions, understanding relationships, solving problems, sequencing, identifying shapes, counting objects, responding to oral word problems and demonstrating persistence, motivation etc. This is pertinent because learning in the early years is deeply interconnected to multiple factors. To illustrate, say, a child who cannot sit through a story may not simply have a language problem, they may have had limited exposure to books or sustained adult interaction.

Similarly, a child struggling with numbers may understand quantities perfectly well through everyday activities but find the symbols unfamiliar and a child who does not participate in class may be anxious or just unfamiliar with the school environment. Readiness, therefore, is not a checklist of deficits but more like a combination of cognitive, physical, linguistic, social and emotional capacities that develop through sustained relationships and environments both inside and outside the classroom. 

Readiness as a two-way journey 

We also need to stop imagining readiness as a one-way process. A child has to be prepared for school, but schools also have to be prepared for children. This is particularly important in India, where children enter classrooms with enormous differences in language, preschool exposure, family circumstances, nutrition, parental education and prior learning experiences.

UNICEF says children in the same grade can have vastly different levels of foundational ability. Grade-level teaching alone cannot address these differences: children need to be taught from their current learning level rather than simply from the textbook prescribed for their grade because the implications are significant. If a six-year-old enters Class 1 without preschool exposure, asking whether the child is “ready” can obscure the more important question: what support does the child need to participate and learn? This is explored in approaches such as Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL), the emphasis is placed on what children can actually do rather than the grade they are enrolled in.

Evidence from TaRL programmes shows that when children who are struggling with foundational literacy and numeracy are taught according to their current learning levels, rather than simply being moved through the curriculum with their age cohort, learning gaps can be addressed more effectively. 

This is one reason India’s National Education Policy 2020 reorganised the first stage of education around a foundational stage that includes three years of early childhood education followed by

Classes 1 and 2. The policy’s stated ambition is that children entering Grade 1 should be school-ready, while the NIPUN Bharat mission focuses on ensuring foundational literacy and numeracy by the end of Grade 3. The policy shift thus recognises that children do not arrive at school as blank slates, and they do not arrive with equal starting points. 

What readiness looks like beyond the classroom

The idea that children need more than academic preparation to learn is also reflected in the way community-based education programmes are designed. At Smile Foundation, the Mission Education programme takes an integrated approach, combining education with nutrition, healthcare and other forms of support that help create a more enabling environment for learning. The programme works with children from underserved communities, including those living in difficult circumstances and hard-to-reach areas.

This matters because a child struggling to learn may not necessarily need more worksheets or longer hours in the classroom. They may need a nutritious meal, a health check-up, additional academic support or simply a learning environment in which they feel safe enough to participate. Smile Foundation’s work has, for example, integrated health check-ups, nutrition support and remedial education within some Mission Education projects, recognising that these factors can influence children’s ability to engage with education.

The same principle applies to how children learn. Mission Education’s current approach includes experiential and STEM learning, digital learning solutions, sports and extracurricular activities alongside curriculum-based learning. It also includes teacher capacity building around child pedagogy, wellbeing and classroom practices.

In this sense, readiness is not something a child has to arrive with. It is something that families, communities, schools and education programmes can help build.

That distinction is important. If a child enters Class 1 hungry, anxious or without previous exposure to structured learning, asking whether the child is “ready” risks placing responsibility for the gap entirely on the child. A more useful question is what can be done to create the conditions in which that child can learn.

Towards a well-rounded approach 

Development Sector Jobs Becoming A Top Career Choice

There are other facets too. Say, how a hungry child cannot be expected to experience the classroom in the same way as a child whose nutritional and health needs are being met. Early childhood development is inseparable from health, nutrition, sanitation and emotional security.

UNICEF identifies these as interconnected components of nurturing care rather than separate interventions. This is especially important in contexts where families experience poverty, food insecurity or limited access to healthcare. Thus, this question of whether a child is ready to learn cannot be separated from whether that child has had the conditions necessary for healthy development. This is also why institutions such as anganwadis matter. Their role extends beyond preparing children academically for primary school. They can provide nutrition, care, early stimulation and opportunities for play and social interaction. 

Ultimately, being ready to learn should not mean being trained to behave like a miniature schoolchild. A child should not have to arrive knowing how to sit silently for long periods, reproduce letters perfectly or perform according to an adult-defined idea of discipline before being considered capable of learning. Curiosity, communication, play, experimentation, movement and even the ability to ask questions are themselves foundations of learning. This is particularly relevant when considering the persistent gap between enrolment and learning in India.

Being physically present in school does not automatically translate into foundational learning. The challenge, then, is to create an education system capable of responding to children at different stages of development. That means quality preschool education, trained early-childhood educators, play-based learning, adequate nutrition and healthcare, supportive families, inclusive classrooms and teachers equipped to assess children’s actual learning levels. It also means recognising that readiness is not a fixed state achieved once and for all before Class 1. Children continue to become ready to learn throughout their educational journeys.

FAQs

1. What does it mean for a child to be ready to learn?
Being ready to learn goes beyond knowing letters and numbers or being prepared for Class 1. It includes a child’s physical health, nutrition, emotional security, language and cognitive development, social skills, curiosity and ability to engage with others and their environment.

2. Is being ready to learn the same as being school-ready?
Not exactly. School readiness often focuses on the knowledge, skills and behaviours that help a child participate in formal education. Readiness to learn is broader and develops from birth, shaped by the environments, relationships and experiences a child encounters before and after entering school.

3. When does readiness to learn begin?
Readiness to learn begins well before formal schooling. Everyday experiences such as talking, reading, playing, exploring, counting objects and responding to a child’s questions can contribute to language, cognitive, social and emotional development.

4. What factors affect a child’s readiness to learn?
Nutrition, healthcare, sleep, safety, emotional security, responsive caregiving, language exposure, opportunities for play and stimulation, preschool experiences and the quality of learning environments can all influence a child’s ability to learn.

5. Why is nutrition important for learning?
A hungry or poorly nourished child may find it harder to concentrate and participate in classroom activities. This is why early childhood development cannot be separated from nutrition and health.

6. What skills should children develop before starting school?
Rather than focusing only on academic skills, children benefit from development across several areas, including early language, early numeracy, cognitive development and social and emotional development. Persistence, communication, problem-solving and motivation are also important foundations for learning.

7. Does every child enter school with the same level of readiness?
No. Children enter school with different experiences of preschool, language, nutrition, family circumstances, parental education and prior learning. Recognising these differences is important for creating classrooms that can respond to children at different starting points.

8. What can schools do when children are at different learning levels?
Schools can assess what children can actually do and adapt teaching accordingly rather than assuming that all children in the same grade have the same foundational skills. Approaches such as Teaching at the Right Level focus on children’s actual learning levels.

9. Why is early childhood important for future learning?
Early childhood is a period when important foundations for language, cognition, social development and emotional development are established. Experiences during these years can influence how children engage with learning in the early primary grades and beyond.

10. How can parents help children become ready to learn?
Parents and caregivers can support learning through everyday interactions: talking and listening to children, reading together, encouraging questions, playing, counting objects, allowing children to explore and responding sensitively to their needs.

11. What role do anganwadis play in children’s readiness to learn?
Anganwadis can support several aspects of early childhood development, including nutrition, care, early stimulation, play and social interaction. Their role therefore extends beyond academic preparation for primary school.

12. Why does health and nutrition matter for school readiness?
A child’s ability to participate in learning is closely connected to their physical and emotional wellbeing. Healthcare, adequate nutrition, safety and emotional security create conditions that make sustained learning more possible.

13. What is the difference between being enrolled in school and being ready to learn?
Enrolment means that a child is attending an educational institution. Being ready to learn is broader: it concerns whether the child has the developmental, physical, emotional and social foundations needed to engage meaningfully with learning.

14. Why should schools also be “ready” for children?
Children do not enter classrooms with identical abilities or experiences. Schools therefore need to provide inclusive classrooms, trained educators, appropriate teaching approaches, play-based learning and support that responds to children’s actual developmental and learning needs.

15. Is readiness to learn something a child achieves once before Class 1?
No. Readiness is not a fixed state achieved once and for all. Children continue to develop the cognitive, social, emotional and other capabilities that support learning throughout their educational journeys.

Categories
Education Insights

Who Gets to Be a Scientist? How Gender, Geography and Income Shape STEM Aspirations

Gender-neutral STEM aspirations

In the 1930s, when Kamala Sohonie applied to study at the Indian Institute of Science, there was a fairly simple reason she was not expected to be there: she was a woman. She had graduated from the University of Bombay with first-class honours in chemistry and physics, but her academic record did not automatically get her a place at one of India’s most prestigious scientific institutions. C.V. Raman, then director of the institute, was initially reluctant to admit her, and her eventual entry came with conditions that reflected the prejudices surrounding women in scientific research at the time.

Sohonie persisted and went on to complete her research in biochemistry and, in 1939, became the first Indian woman to receive a PhD in a scientific discipline. Her story raises a question that remains relevant nearly a century later: what shapes a child’s STEM aspirations, and who gets the opportunity to turn those aspirations into a career?

Her story is remarkable, but perhaps more useful than remarkable. It shows that becoming a scientist has never been only a matter of being good at science. Sohonie had the academic ability, but she also needed the opportunity to enter the institution, the persistence to remain there and, crucially, a social environment in which a woman pursuing scientific research could be imagined as legitimate. Her career eventually took her towards questions of nutrition and public health, including research into the nutritional value of legumes and foods consumed by economically disadvantaged communities. 

Nearly a century later, the barriers have changed, but the larger question has not still disappeared — Who gets encouraged to pursue science? 

Gender gap begins early in STEM aspirations 

A child’s interest in science may begin with curiosity, but whether that curiosity becomes a career is shaped by much more than curiosity alone. Gender happens to be one of the most visible factors shaping who imagines themselves belonging in STEM. There is a larger belief system that boys are better at science than girls, shaped by stereotypes that are older than contemporary society. A lot of girls are not inherently less interested or less capable in science and mathematics; rather, their engagement with these subjects is shaped by expectations that begin remarkably early.

UNESCO estimates that women account for only around 35 per cent of STEM graduates globally and less than 30 per cent of the world’s researchers. The imbalance becomes particularly pronounced in fields such as engineering, information and communication technology, and some areas of physical sciences. The problem is therefore not simply that fewer women eventually enter scientific careers. It is that the pipeline narrows at multiple points. 

Ideas about who is naturally good at mathematics, who is technically minded, and what kinds of work are appropriate for women can influence subject choices long before a student reaches university. Teachers, parents and peers can unintentionally reinforce these assumptions. A girl who performs well in mathematics may still receive stronger encouragement towards medicine or the humanities, while boys may be more readily encouraged towards engineering, computing or technical careers. Representation therefore, matters here because aspirations are partly built through familiarity.

When children repeatedly encounter scientists as men in textbooks, laboratories and popular culture, the message breeds stereotypes. Increasing the visibility of women scientists is therefore not just symbolic that way but pertinent because it expands the range of futures that young people can imagine for themselves. 

Geography as a determinant 

Location also plays a key role. A student in a metropolitan city may have access to specialised schools, science museums, robotics clubs, Olympiad programmes, private laboratories, coding courses and universities with established research departments. A student in a rural or economically disadvantaged region may encounter science primarily through a textbook and a classroom with limited equipment. This does not mean that rural or smaller-town students lack scientific curiosity or the temperament. But it is just the lack of opportunities that allows access to one and not the other.

A child who wants to understand how a machine works needs somewhere to experiment. A student interested in astronomy needs access to mentors, telescopes or science clubs. Someone considering research as a career needs to know that such a career exists in the first place and understand how one gets there. 

India’s geographic inequalities in higher education make this particularly significant. The expansion of institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, central universities and other research institutions has widened opportunities, but access remains uneven. For many students, pursuing STEM after school can also mean moving away from home, paying for accommodation and navigating an unfamiliar educational environment. The result is that geography does not merely determine where a student studies. It can shape what futures appear available in the first place. 

Economic disparities as last straw 

STEM education is often presented as a meritocratic pathway: study hard, perform well and opportunities will follow. But academic performance itself is shaped by resources such as private tutoring, coaching classes, reliable internet, laptops, educational materials and the ability to spend additional time studying are not distributed equally. There is also the question of what happens after school. A student from a financially secure household may be able to spend several years pursuing an undergraduate degree, followed by a master’s and potentially a PhD. For a student whose family depends on an early income, the same path can feel prohibitively long. 

This is one reason why widening participation in STEM requires more than scholarships alone. Financial support has to be accompanied by mentoring, academic preparation, career information and institutional support. Otherwise, students may enter STEM programmes without having the networks and resources needed to remain there.

Therefore, there is an important gap between enjoying science at school and imagining oneself as a scientist. Most children encounter science through textbooks and examinations. Far fewer encounter the actual practice of scientific work: asking questions for which there may not yet be answers, designing experiments, working with data, collaborating with other researchers and sometimes spending years investigating a very small problem. That gap makes all the difference because career aspirations are produced through exposure and not just interest.

This is where schools, universities, museums, nonprofits and research institutions can play a crucial role. Science outreach should not only tell children that STEM careers exist but should allow them to experience how scientific thinking works and meet the people doing it. 

Smile Foundation has incorporated STEM learning into its flagship Mission Education programme, using hands-on activities to introduce children from underserved communities to science and technology beyond the confines of textbook learning. Its dedicated STEM labs provide children with access to digital tools, robotics and DIY science kits, and electronics equipment. Another programme STEM on Wheel’, a mobile laboratory model, takes these learning opportunities to children in remote and marginalised communities. Together, these efforts aim to make scientific learning more experiential and expand children’s exposure to STEM beyond what is typically available in under-resourced schools. 

Making STEM aspirations more equal 

If the question is who gets to become a scientist, the answer cannot simply be the students who work hardest primarily because scientific talent is distributed far more widely in our country than scientific opportunity. Creating a more inclusive STEM ecosystem therefore requires intervention at several levels: better science infrastructure in underserved schools, stronger career counselling, exposure to researchers and laboratories, scholarships that address the real costs of higher education, mentoring for first-generation learners and deliberate efforts to make women and other underrepresented groups visible across scientific fields. 

The important goal is to ensure that a child does not abandon a scientific ambition simply because they were born in the wrong place, into the wrong income group or into a society that taught them they did not belong there. In conclusion, who gets to be a scientist is not only a question of ability but possibility, and who can afford to stay on the path long enough to reach it.

FAQs

1. What are STEM aspirations?
STEM aspirations are a person’s interest or ambition to pursue education or a career in science, technology, engineering or mathematics. These aspirations can begin in childhood and are shaped by experiences at home, school and in the wider community.

2. What influences children’s STEM aspirations?
Children’s STEM aspirations can be influenced by gender stereotypes, role models, family expectations, quality of education, access to technology and science facilities, geography, financial circumstances and exposure to real-world scientific work.

3. Why do fewer women pursue STEM careers?
The article highlights that gender stereotypes can influence children’s subject choices and expectations from an early age. Ideas about who is naturally good at mathematics or technically minded can shape whether girls see STEM as a field in which they belong.

4. Why is representation of women in STEM important?
Seeing women scientists in textbooks, laboratories, media and educational settings can broaden children’s understanding of who can become a scientist. Representation can help make scientific careers feel more familiar and attainable.

5. How does geography affect access to STEM aspirations/education?
Students in metropolitan areas may have greater access to specialised schools, science museums, robotics clubs, coding courses, laboratories and research institutions. Students in rural or economically disadvantaged communities may have fewer opportunities to experience science beyond textbooks and classroom instruction.

6. How does family income affect STEM opportunities?
Access to resources such as private tutoring, coaching, reliable internet, laptops and educational materials can influence a student’s ability to pursue STEM. Financial circumstances can also affect whether a young person can afford several years of higher education.

7. Is academic ability enough to pursue a STEM career?
Academic ability is important, but it is not the only factor. Students also need access to educational opportunities, mentors, financial support, career information, practical experience and an environment that encourages them to remain on the STEM pathway.

8. Why is hands-on STEM learning important?
Hands-on learning allows children to experience science as more than textbooks and examinations. Activities involving experiments, robotics, electronics, data and problem-solving can help students understand how scientific thinking works and potentially strengthen their interest in STEM.

9. How can schools encourage STEM aspirations among children?
Schools can provide practical science activities, expose students to researchers and STEM professionals, offer career guidance, create science clubs and provide access to equipment and technology. These experiences can help children understand what STEM careers actually involve.

10. How can nonprofits help increase access to STEM education?
Nonprofits can help address gaps in access by providing science equipment, digital tools, hands-on learning, mentorship and exposure to STEM careers, particularly for children from underserved communities.

11. How is Smile Foundation supporting STEM learning?
Smile Foundation has incorporated STEM learning into its Mission Education programme. Its STEM labs provide children with opportunities to use digital tools, robotics and DIY science kits and electronics equipment. Its STEM on Wheels model takes mobile STEM learning opportunities to children in remote and marginalised communities.

12. Why are STEM aspirations important for India’s future?
India’s scientific and technological development depends on having a broad and diverse pool of young people who can pursue STEM education and careers. Expanding opportunity can help ensure that scientific talent is not limited by where a child lives, their family income or gender.

13. How can we make STEM opportunities more equal?
Creating a more inclusive STEM ecosystem requires action at several levels, including better science infrastructure in underserved schools, career counselling, exposure to researchers and laboratories, scholarships, mentoring and greater visibility of women and other underrepresented groups in scientific fields.

14. Does every child interested in science need to become a scientist?
No. The goal is not to direct every child towards a scientific career. It is to ensure that children have enough exposure, support and opportunity to make that choice for themselves rather than abandoning a STEM aspiration because of circumstances or stereotypes.

Categories
Insights Smile

The Problem with Counting Beneficiaries

Rural classrooms in India
Counting Beneficiaries in a social impact project

In development work, counting beneficiaries are reassuring. Numbers give us something concrete to report on and base our analysis on, such as 10000 children reached, 50000 women supported, 100 villages covered or 5000 young people trained. Such numbers are important to report and talk about because they tell us whether a programme is reaching the people it was designed to reach and whether resources are being deployed at the scale intended.

But there is a problem when the number of people reached becomes the one and only measure of a project’s success.

A person who attends a training session, receives a health consultation or is enrolled in an education programme may be counted as a beneficiary. However that number alone tells us very little about what changed afterwards. Did the child actually learn or continue their education? Did the woman become financially more secure? Did the young person find and retain a job? Did access to healthcare lead to better health?

In development, the distance between reach and change can be considerable.

Counting beneficiaries/Reach is just the beginning

Counting beneficiaries is not inherently a problem when it comes to measuring the impact and success of a project. In fact, knowing who has been reached is essential for accountability. It can show whether a programme is reaching the communities it intended to serve and whether interventions are being implemented at the planned scale.

The World Bank’s approach to monitoring and evaluation makes a similar distinction by emphasising the importance of measuring development outcomes, generating evidence about what works and adapting programmes based on what the evidence shows. The OECD’s evaluation framework goes further, stressing that meaningful evaluation should examine not only whether an intervention was delivered, but also its relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability.

This distinction is particularly important in social development because programmes often work with complex problems that cannot be solved through a single intervention.

For instance, a child attending a learning centre is an indicator of the programme’s reach, but improved reading ability is an outcome. Staying in school, completing secondary education and moving into further education or employment are longer-term changes.

Activities are not impact 

Development programmes inevitably result in outputs. Consider a livelihood programme. Saying that 5000 young people were trained tells us something about the programme’s scale. It does not tell us whether those young people found jobs, whether they retained those jobs, whether their incomes increased or whether the employment they entered provided any meaningful economic security.

The same applies to women’s entrepreneurship. The number of women trained in financial literacy may be significant, but the more important questions are what happened afterwards. Did women start businesses? Did those businesses generate regular income? Were they able to access markets and finance? Did their control over household income increase?

The numbers required to answer these questions are often harder to collect.

What gets measured dictates priorities

There is another reason counting beneficiaries can become problematic. For example, what organisations measure can influence what they prioritise.

If a programme is primarily judged by how many people it reaches, there can be a natural incentive to maximise that each. Large numbers make programmes appear scalable and can communicate the breadth of an organisation’s work to donors, partners and the public. But that same scale and depth are not always the same thing.

A one-day intervention delivered to 100,000 people and an intensive intervention that changes the lives of 10000 people are fundamentally different models. Neither is automatically more valuable; the appropriate measure depends on the problem being addressed. But comparing them simply by beneficiary numbers can obscure the difference.

A vaccination campaign, for example, may legitimately focus on reaching as many people as possible because population coverage is itself a critical outcome. A programme designed to improve women’s economic independence may require a much deeper engagement over a longer period.

The lifecycle approach

At Smile Foundation, our own work illustrates why looking beyond a single beneficiary count is important. Our approach follows a lifecycle model, beginning with education but extending into healthcare, livelihoods and women’s empowerment. Our 2025 Annual Report explains the reasoning behind this approach: a child’s education cannot always be separated from the health and economic circumstances of the family.

This is also reflected in the scale of our programmes. Our reports indicate our programme reached 1.85 lakh children through Mission Education, while our healthcare interventions reached over 17 lakh people across 17 states in the reporting period.

Towards women’s empowerment

Similarly, our Swabhiman women’s empowerment programme, initiated in 2005, reports reaching more than 1.90 lakh women and girls through integrated health, nutrition and livelihood interventions. The programme works across nutrition, healthcare and livelihoods. In 2024-25 reporting, 5048 women were trained in entrepreneurship and financial literacy through the initiative and 116 micro-enterprises were established.

The first number tells us about programme participation, while the second moves closer to an outcome, because it indicates that some participants went on to establish enterprises. But the more meaningful questions would be whether those enterprises remained operational, whether women’s incomes increased, whether businesses gained access to markets and finance, and whether women gained greater control over economic decisions. These are harder indicators to measure, but they offer a much clearer picture of whether entrepreneurship support has translated into lasting economic change.

Smile Foundation’s 2024 reporting similarly records 68 women-led micro-enterprises initiated, alongside business-skills and financial-literacy training. The year-on-year figures show programme activity and expansion, but they also point to the need for longer-term tracking if we want to understand sustainability.

From counting beneficiaries to outcomes

A better way to think about development measurement is as a chain. There are inputs such as money, staff, infrastructure and partnerships. Then, there are activities such as training, healthcare consultations, classroom support or community mobilisation. There are also outputs such as people trained, children enrolled, health consultations completed, or enterprises established. Then there come outcomes, improved learning, better health, higher employment, increased income or stronger decision-making power.

And finally, there is a longer-term impact: sustained improvements in people’s lives and the systems around them.

Numbers should lead to better questions

This does not mean development organisations should stop reporting beneficiary numbers because, on the contrary, they remain an important part of transparency and accountability. But the problem begins when they are presented as if they automatically represent impact.

A programme reaching one lakh people is not necessarily more transformative than one reaching ten thousand. Similarly, a person receiving a service is not necessarily a person whose life has changed. And a programme that delivers an activity successfully is not necessarily a programme that has achieved its intended outcome. The answer is not to abandon numbers, but to use better ones.

Alongside reach, organisations can track changes in learning levels, income, employment retention, health outcomes, business survival, access to services, women’s decision-making and other indicators that correspond to the programme’s actual objectives.

Importantly, measurement should also include the voices of the people programmes are intended to serve. Quantitative indicators can tell us how many people participated or what changed on a particular measure. People’s experiences can help explain why something changed, what worked for them and what did not.

This is one reason the OECD emphasises learning, stakeholder needs and credible evidence in development evaluation. Evaluation is not simply about proving that a programme worked but also about understanding what worked, for whom, under what circumstances and why.

FAQs

1. What does counting beneficiaries mean in development work?
Counting beneficiaries means recording the number of people who participate in, receive or are reached by a programme or intervention. This could include children enrolled in an education programme, people receiving healthcare consultations or young people participating in skills training.

2. Is counting beneficiaries a measure of impact?
Not by itself. Beneficiary numbers are useful for understanding a programme’s reach and implementation, but they do not necessarily show what changed as a result of the intervention. Impact measurement needs to consider outcomes and longer-term changes as well.

3. Why are beneficiary numbers important?
Beneficiary numbers can support transparency and accountability. They help organisations demonstrate whether programmes reached their intended communities and whether interventions were implemented at the planned scale.

4. What is the difference between outputs, outcomes and impact?
Outputs describe what a programme delivers, such as people trained, children enrolled or healthcare consultations completed. Outcomes describe the changes that follow, such as improved learning, increased income or better health. Impact refers to longer-term, sustained changes in people’s lives and the systems around them.

5. Why can beneficiary numbers be misleading?
Counting beneficiaries can demonstrate scale without showing the depth or quality of change. A one-day intervention reaching 100,000 people and an intensive programme supporting 10,000 people over several years may have very different objectives and outcomes. Comparing them only by beneficiary numbers can therefore obscure meaningful differences between programmes.

6. What should organisations measure alongside beneficiary numbers?
The indicators should reflect what a programme is actually trying to achieve. Depending on the intervention, these could include learning outcomes, employment retention, income changes, health outcomes, business survival, access to services or changes in women’s decision-making power.

7. How can development organisations measure social impact more effectively?
Organisations can use a measurement framework that connects inputs and activities to outputs, outcomes and longer-term impact. This helps distinguish between what a programme delivered and the changes it contributed to.

8. Why is it important to track outcomes after a programme ends?
Some changes take time to become visible. For example, training someone does not necessarily mean they found or retained employment, just as helping establish a business does not tell us whether that business remained viable. Longer-term tracking can provide a clearer picture of sustainability.

9. How does beneficiary counting apply to women’s empowerment programmes?
Counting the number of women who participate in training is useful for understanding reach. However, deeper measurement might examine whether participants established businesses, increased their income, gained access to markets or finance, or gained greater control over economic decisions.

10. Does a larger number of beneficiaries mean greater social impact?
Not necessarily. Scale and impact are different measures. A programme’s value should be assessed against its objectives and the type of change it is designed to achieve, rather than beneficiary numbers alone.

11. Why should development programmes include beneficiaries’ experiences in evaluation?
Quantitative data can show how many people participated or whether a particular indicator changed. People’s experiences can help explain why that change occurred, what worked, what did not and whether the programme addressed their actual needs.

12. How does Smile Foundation approach measuring its programmes?
Smile Foundation’s work illustrates the importance of looking across different stages of development rather than viewing participation numbers in isolation. Its programmes span education, healthcare, livelihoods and women’s empowerment, creating opportunities to consider both programme reach and indicators of change. The article highlights this through examples including Mission Education and the Swabhiman women’s empowerment programme.

13. What is the main limitation of using beneficiary numbers to demonstrate success?
The main limitation is that reach is not the same as change. Knowing that someone received a service, attended training or enrolled in a programme tells us that an intervention reached them. It does not, on its own, tell us whether their circumstances improved or whether the change was sustained.

Categories
Livelihood Skill Development

Can Short-Term Training Create Long-Term Livelihoods?

National Youth Day 2025: What are the Young Looking Forward to This Year?
National Youth Day 2025: What are the Young Looking Forward to This Year?

For a young person who has left school or college without a clear path into work, short-term training can offer a way forward. Three or four months can be enough to learn a skill that earns a living, whether it is in healthcare, retail, electrical work, tailoring, hospitality or digital services. The training may be short, but the hope attached to it is usually much bigger. A job can mean the first regular income in a family, the ability to contribute to household expenses or simply the chance to move beyond irregular daily-wage work.

It could be a skill in healthcare, retail, electrical work, tailoring, hospitality or digital services. The training may be short, but the hope attached to it is usually much bigger. A job can mean the first regular income in a family, the ability to contribute to household expenses or simply the chance to stop depending on irregular daily-wage work.

But a certificate by itself does not create a livelihood. The more difficult question is what happens after the training ends.

Preparing the Youth for India’s 5 Trillion Economy Goal: Short-term training

India has invested heavily in short-term skilling over the past decade. The Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, for example, has trained candidates across sectors ranging from healthcare and electronics to logistics, agriculture and IT. In 2024-25 alone, more than 20 lakh candidates were trained under PMKVY. However, the government’s own data shows why training numbers need to be looked at alongside employment outcomes. Under the Short-Term Training component of PMKVY 1.0 to 3.0, 7.42 lakh candidates were certified in 2020-21 and 2021-22, of whom about 3.80 lakh or 51 per cent, were reported as placed.

These figures point to an essential question: what enables certain short-term courses to serve as springboards for careers, while others end as a mere piece of paper?

A first job can change the direction of a life

Chandan Shah grew up in Tetahli village in Bihar’s Siwan district. He left school after the tenth grade to support his father in farming and take on local odd jobs. As documented in a September 2026 report by the Press Information Bureau, his sporadic earnings were barely enough to keep the household afloat.

Encouraged by his mother, an active member of a JEEViKA self-help group, Chandan sought career guidance at the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY). Following counselling, he enrolled in an assistant electrician course. Upon graduating, he landed his first formal job in Baddi as a helper at a distillery, earning INR 10500 a month.

That initial position was far more than a paycheck; it was the foundation of his working life.

With hands-on experience under his belt, Chandan eventually secured an electrician role with a contracting firm in Dubai, raising his monthly earnings to INR 35000. This milestone enabled him to comfortably support his family back home and fund his siblings’ education.

His trajectory illustrates a key insight: short-term training did not magically propel Chandan from a rural village into an international salary. Instead, it equipped him with a foundational technical skill and a gateway into the workforce, allowing on-the-job experience to build long-term value.

That progression matters when thinking about what ‘long-term livelihood’ should mean.

Training numbers are only the beginning

The International Labour Organization’s India Employment Report 2024, published alongside the Institute for Human Development, highlights a structural challenge: while India’s youth are achieving higher educational levels than previous generations, securing stable employment remains difficult. The report also finds that technical education improves the likelihood of employment and that higher levels of technical qualification are associated with greater chances of regular formal employment.

For young people who cannot commit years or financial resources to higher education degrees, short-term vocational courses offer an efficient, accessible entryway into the economy.

But fast-track learning is only meaningful when tied directly to real economic demand or builds a transferable skill.

Teaching retail management in an area without formal retail outlets yields little gain. A digital marketing certification without hands-on computer practice, real projects or hiring partners rarely leads to employment. Likewise, a plumbing qualification is only actionable if trainees can connect with contractors, find local clients or launch independent services.

The connection between the training centre and the workplace is therefore crucial.

That is one reason newer skilling programmes have increasingly moved towards industry exposure, apprenticeships and on-the-job training. Under PMKVY 4.0, for instance, on-the-job training has become an integral part of industry-relevant courses. The government says district-level skill plans are also being used to identify local industry demand.

What happens after the short-term training certificate?

Consider the experience of Rupali Hasda from Charaideo, Assam.

Rupali left school after Class 9 due to family financial pressures. In December 2022, through a local community network, she enrolled in DDU-GKY’s Sewing Machine Operator course.

After completing the training, she took a job at KPR Apparels Mills in Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu. She worked there for five months, learning what it meant to work in an unfamiliar city and environment.

Rather than viewing factory work as her final destination, Rupali used her savings and newfound technical experience to set up a tailoring and cutting centre in her home village. Investing INR 50000, she launched her business and hired another local woman; official reports estimate her annual earnings at approximately INR 1.10 lakh.

Her story shows another possible route from training to livelihood. The first job provided experience and income. The skill then became the self-employment basis.

This model holds immense relevance across India, where a vast portion of the workforce operates outside formal salaried roles.  For millions, a sustainable livelihood takes the form of small micro-enterprises, independent trade work, subcontracting or diversified income streams.

Short-term training therefore cannot be judged only by whether someone receives a job offer immediately afterwards. For some workers, the more meaningful outcome may be whether their earnings become more regular, whether they gain more customers, whether they can charge for a more specialised service or whether they can employ somebody else.

The skills beyond the trade

There is another part of the equation that is easy to overlook.

Knowing how to do a job is not always the same as knowing how to keep one.

A young person entering a retail store may need to communicate with customers, use billing software, handle a difficult interaction or state the correct information at the correct time. A healthcare assistant needs technical knowledge but also needs to understand workplace procedures and patient communication. A self-employed electrician needs to quote for work, maintain customer relationships, use digital payments and manage basic finances.

This is why employability skills increasingly appear alongside technical training.

Smile Foundation’s livelihood program exemplifies this approach by pairing technical training skills, problem-solving and career mentoring. Programs like iTrain on Wheels by Berger Paints, in partnership with the Smile Foundation, brings mobile upskilling to painters and architects. This gives the informal workforce a chance to upskill on the go, rather than dedicating weeks and months away from earning their bread and butter. 

BPO and Retail Sectors

A job is not necessarily a livelihood

Placement figures can also hide what happens after someone joins.

A candidate may leave a role within months due to inadequate pay, long commutes, high living costs in urban centres or family commitments. Women often confront extra mobility or safety constraints, while rural youth may find that post-training jobs require relocating hundreds of kilometres away.

To address these retention bottlenecks, programs are increasingly shifting focus from initial hire dates to long-term post-placement tracking and mentorship.

For example, DDU-GKY provides post-placement stipends and counselling for candidates relocating for work, placing greater weight on employment stability and retention tracking. As of June 2026, official data reports that DDU-GKY has trained 18.45 lakh rural youth, with 12.35 lakh successfully placed in jobs.

The distinction between landing a job and maintaining a career path is vital. An entry-level job serves its purpose if it allows workers to gain transferable skills, build industry contacts and step up to better future opportunities.

The difference between a short-term training and a pathway

The strongest short-term training programmes tend to have several things in common. They identify what employers or customers actually need. They give trainees opportunities to practise rather than simply listen to lectures. They include workplace exposure. They help people prepare for interviews or their first day at work. And most importantly, they remain involved long enough to know whether the transition into employment actually happened.

For informal workers, the model can look slightly different. A painter who already has ten years of experience may not need to learn painting from scratch. He may need training in newer materials, safety practices, tools, customer handling and pricing. The purpose of the training is then to increase the value of a skill the worker already possesses.

This strategy underpins several mobile upskilling initiatives tailored for informal labourers. In its 2024 – 25 reporting, Smile Foundation noted that its mobile units reached 1.35 lakh workers across 5,924 targeted sessions, with 97.11 per cent of surveyed participants reporting income gains and over 51 per cent doubling their earnings.

While these self-reported figures reflect specific program successes rather than guaranteed outcomes for every trainee, they highlight a crucial principle: skilling achieves maximum impact when tailored around existing market needs and workers’ foundational skills.

Can short-term training create long-term livelihoods?

It can. But the duration of the course is probably not the most important part.

A three-month programme can teach someone enough to enter a job. A few months of work can provide experience. Experience can lead to a better job, a higher wage or self-employment. Over time, these small steps can become a career.

The reverse is also possible. A person can complete a course, receive a certificate and still remain unemployed because the skill does not match local demand, the employer does not recognise the qualification, the salary is insufficient, or there is no support to make the transition into work.

The difference lies in what happens around the training.

To succeed, a short course must connect directly to market demand, practical practice, industry networks, and ongoing mentorship. Crucially, it must also address real-world barriers outside the classroom — such as transportation, childcare, relocation costs, digital access, and building confidence in formal work environments.

The real measure of skilling, then, is not how quickly someone can finish a course. It is whether the learning continues to have value after the classroom is left behind.

For a young person looking for a first job, that may mean a first salary. For someone already working informally, it may mean more customers or higher earnings. For another person, it may mean gaining enough experience to start a small business and employ someone else.

A certificate marks the end of training. A livelihood begins when the skill becomes useful in the real world.

FAQs

1. What is short-term training?
Short-term training refers to vocational or skills-based programmes that can be completed in a relatively short period and are designed to help learners develop practical skills for employment or self-employment.

2. Can short-term training lead to a long-term career?
Yes, but completing a course does not automatically lead to a sustainable livelihood. Short-term training is most effective when it is connected to real market demand, practical experience, industry exposure, employment opportunities and ongoing support. Pasted markdown

3. Is a certificate enough to get a job?
Not necessarily. A certificate demonstrates that someone has completed training, but employers may also look for practical ability, communication, problem-solving, workplace readiness and relevant experience. Pasted markdown

4. What makes short-term training effective?
Effective training programmes typically combine technical skills with practical learning, workplace exposure, industry connections, interview preparation and support during the transition into employment. Pasted markdown

5. What skills should short-term training programmes teach?
Alongside job-specific technical skills, learners can benefit from communication, problem-solving, customer handling, digital skills, financial management and other employability skills that help them function effectively in the workplace. Pasted markdown

6. Can short-term training help informal workers increase their income?
Yes. For workers who already have experience, training can focus on upgrading existing skills, introducing new tools or techniques, improving safety, strengthening customer relationships and helping workers better price or market their services. Pasted markdown

7. What is the difference between a job and a livelihood?
A job provides employment, but a livelihood is broader. It can include stable employment, self-employment, a growing customer base, higher earnings or the ability to build a small business and employ others. Pasted markdown

8. Why is industry exposure important in short-term training?
Industry exposure helps learners understand how their skills are actually used at work. It can also help connect training with employer expectations and improve the transition from the classroom to the workplace. Pasted markdown

9. What happens after short-term training is completed?
The transition after training is critical. Learners may need help finding employment, preparing for interviews, relocating for work, adapting to a new workplace or receiving mentorship after placement. Without this support, completing training does not always translate into sustained employment. Pasted markdown

10. How does Smile Foundation support skill development?
Smile Foundation’s livelihood programmes combine technical training with employability skills, problem-solving and career mentoring. Its iTrain on Wheels initiative, implemented with Berger Paints, brings mobile upskilling opportunities to informal workers such as painters and architects, allowing them to develop their skills without having to spend extended periods away from work. Pasted markdown

11. Can short-term training support self-employment?
Yes. A first job can provide practical experience and savings that later help someone start a business. The article’s example of Rupali Hasda illustrates how sewing training and factory experience eventually helped her establish a tailoring and cutting centre in her village. Pasted markdown

12. How should the success of a short-term training programme be measured?
Success should go beyond the number of people trained or certificates issued. Useful measures include employment, income changes, job retention, progression to better opportunities, increased customers for informal workers and the ability to start or grow a business. Pasted markdown

13. Can a three-month course really change someone’s career?
It can be a starting point. A short course may help someone enter their first job; that experience can lead to better employment, higher earnings or self-employment. The important factor is what happens after the training and whether the skill continues to create value. Pasted markdown

Categories
Livelihood Skill Development

True Test of a Valuable Skill in the Real World

National Youth Day: Empowering the Nation’s youth

In today’s world of rapid technological advancement, artificial intelligence and automation are reshaping what counts as a valuable skill in a globalised labour market. Unlike in earlier times, a university degree is no longer seen as sufficient, as employers and individuals increasingly seek people who can solve real-life problems, learn continuously, communicate effectively and adapt to changing circumstances. The real question today is therefore not merely which skills are possessed but what makes them valuable in the first place.

Is a certificate enough in today’s market?

In an increasingly competitive world, it is not merely enough to have educational certificates and a basic understanding of jobs. It is becoming important to learn communication skills, ways to work within a team, learn what to do if things go wrong, learn digital tools without being intimidated and also communicate and speak confidently with customers. Such soft skills are becoming increasingly important and hence skills today become valuable not simply because we know them but because we know when and how to use them.

Valuable skills for the youth

The distinction matters more than ever today as the world of work is changing at a rapid pace. Digitisation, artificial intelligence and automation are transforming jobs and changing the expectations of employers. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 estimates that around 39% of workers’ existing skill sets could be transformed or become outdated by 2030. The young person today is wondering whether the skills they have developed can help them find a job tomorrow while trying to keep pace with new technology.

This is where skill development becomes much more than simply a career issue, and becomes necessarily a question of opportunity. Smile Foundation’s skills development initiatives reflect this understanding and through its livelihood and skill development initiatives, we work towards equipping marginalised and underserved youth with practical, industry-level skills and to impart the necessary confidence required to enter the workforce. We believe that the right skill can do much more than help someone get a job; it can open a door to greater independence and a more secure future.

What makes a valuable skill stand out?

We often talk about skills as something tangible and collectable, communication skills, digital skills, leadership skills, technical skills, problem-solving skills. However, a skill is not a valuable skill simply because it looks impressive on a resume, its only value becomes visible when someone needs and uses it.

For example, a skill as basic as communication, something that every job requires. A person might be technically excellent, however, if they fail to explain ideas or understand customer concerns, work with colleagues or ask the correct questions, their technical ability can be difficult to translate into tangible results.  The same issue is true of the skill of problem-solving, especially knowing how to handle difficult situations where a customer is unhappy or when a colleague needs help. Knowing how to respond rather than simply waiting for instructions is itself a valuable skill.

This is why the World Economic Forum’s 2025 skills outlook identifies analytical thinking as one of the most important core skills for employers. Smile Foundation’s approach to livelihood and employability reflects this practical understanding. Through our Skill Training and Employability Programme (STeP) and other livelihood initiatives, we work with underserved youth to develop practical, industry-relevant capabilities while preparing them for the realities of the workplace. The focus is not simply on completing a course, but on helping participants understand how their valuable skills can be applied in situations they are likely to encounter on the job.

Why the “soft skills” conversation needs to change

Communication, teamwork, resilience and empathy are often called “soft skills”. However, there is nothing soft about the role they play in our daily lives and careers. In fact, they are often the valuable skills that determine how effectively we use our technical knowledge. These human qualities build trust, strengthen relationships and help people work together more effectively. In many situations, they are what transform knowledge and expertise into meaningful results.

The World Economic Forum estimates that technological and other labour-market shifts could create around 170 million jobs globally by 2030 while displacing 92 million, resulting in a net increase of 78 million jobs.

Similarly, UNESCO’s work on skills for work and life takes a broader view of vocational and technical education, recognising that preparation for work involves developing not only knowledge and technical abilities but also the wider capabilities, values and attitudes required for decent work and participation in society. This is increasingly relevant as technology changes the tasks people perform, as technical competence remains essential, but it is often most effective when combined with the ability to communicate, collaborate, think creatively and respond to change.

For someone stepping into the professional world for the first time, these valuable skills often shape their experience just as much as their qualifications do. Simple things like introducing yourself confidently in an interview, communicating respectfully with a manager, working alongside people from different backgrounds, managing your time or handling a challenging situation can have a significant impact on day-to-day success. These abilities may not be listed on a certificate or reflected in exam scores, but they influence how people build relationships, solve problems, and grow within an organisation. In many cases, they are what allow a person to turn their technical knowledge into meaningful contributions at work.

Why this matters particularly for India

For India, the question of valuable skills is closely knit and connected to the country’s economic future. India has a large population and is therefore primed to benefit from the demographic dividend. But a young population becomes an economic advantage only when people have access to relevant education, meaningful skills and opportunities to participate productively in the workforce.

The recently published NITI Aayog report Reimagining Skilling for Viksit Bharat@2047 places India’s skilling ecosystem within this broader national challenge. It focuses on strengthening practical exposure, employability, industry alignment and lifelong learning, which reflects an increasingly important understanding of skills.

UNESCO has similarly emphasised the importance of vocational education in helping countries prepare people for changing economies. Its work on transforming technical and vocational education and training looks at how skills systems can support more inclusive transitions, including those driven by digitalisation and changes in the nature of work.

For organisations working closely with communities, the goal of skill development is ultimately simple: helping people be ready when an opportunity comes their way. This is the approach taken by Smile Foundation through its Skill Training and Employability Centres, which equip marginalised and underserved youth with vocational training, workplace skills, career guidance and pathways to employment.

According to our 2024–25 livelihood impact data, the organisation skilled and upskilled more than 1.43 lakh youth and workers across 25 states and 3 Union Territories, while also helping thousands of young people transition into formal employment through a network of over 400 employment partners.

The real measure of a skill

In the end, perhaps we should stop measuring the value of a skill by how impressive it looks on a resume or how many certificates it adds to a person’s qualifications. A valuable skill can help a person solve problems, communicate clearly, work with others, handle difficult situations, earn a livelihood and adapt when circumstances change.

It can also give someone the confidence to step forward, apply for an opportunity, take on a new responsibility or simply believe that they are capable of doing more. This is perhaps the most important purposes of skill development today. It is not simply about preparing someone for one particular job, but it is also about helping them become capable, adaptable and confident enough to grow with their work and circumstances.

Making Indian youth world ready

A certificate can show that someone has completed a course; however, a skill shows what they can actually do with what they have learned. It reflects the ability to turn knowledge into action, deal with challenges, work with people and contribute meaningfully in the workplace. It can become a pathway to employment, financial independence, confidence and greater choice in life.

For many young people, especially those who have had limited access to opportunities, that first skill can be the beginning of a much larger journey. Ultimately, the true measure of a skill is not the certificate it earns, but the opportunities it creates, the confidence it builds and the doors it opens.

FAQs

1. What makes a skill valuable in today’s job market?
A valuable skill is one that can be applied in real-world situations. Beyond technical knowledge, employers increasingly value skills such as communication, problem-solving, teamwork, adaptability and digital confidence.

2. Is a certificate enough to get a job?
A certificate demonstrates that you have completed a course, but it may not show how effectively you can apply what you have learned. Practical skills, workplace readiness and the ability to communicate and solve problems are also important for employment.

3. Which skills are most important for young people today?
Some important skills include communication, analytical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, resilience, empathy, digital literacy and adaptability. These skills can help young people navigate changing workplace expectations.

4. Why are soft skills important for employment?
Soft skills help people use their technical knowledge effectively. For example, good communication can help someone explain an idea, understand a customer or collaborate with colleagues, while problem-solving helps them respond when situations do not go as planned.

5. What is the difference between a skill and a qualification?
A qualification or certificate shows that someone has completed a particular course or programme. A skill reflects what a person can actually do with that knowledge, including applying it, solving problems and responding to workplace situations.

6. Why is skill development important for young people in India?
India’s large young population can contribute significantly to economic growth when young people have access to relevant education, practical skills and opportunities to participate in the workforce. Skill development can help bridge the gap between learning and employment.

7. How can skill development improve employability?
Skill development can help people build industry-relevant capabilities, workplace skills and confidence. It can also prepare learners to communicate effectively, handle challenges and apply their knowledge in professional settings.

8. What does Smile Foundation do to support skill development?
Smile Foundation’s livelihood and skill development initiatives focus on equipping marginalised and underserved youth with vocational training, workplace skills, career guidance and pathways to employment. Its Skill Training and Employability Programme (STeP) is one example of this approach.

9. What is the real measure of a valuable skill?
The real measure is not simply whether a skill appears on a résumé or earns a certificate. A valuable skill helps a person turn knowledge into action, solve problems, work with others, adapt to change and access new opportunities.

10. How can young people prepare for the future of work?
Young people can build a combination of technical and human skills, stay open to learning, develop digital confidence and practise applying their knowledge to real-world situations. Continuous learning and adaptability are particularly important as technology and job requirements evolve.

Categories
Education Insights

School Exams and their Unyielding Worth associated with Children

School Dropout Rates In India

Summary:

  • When school becomes all about school exams, a curious question or a long story can start to feel like wasted time.
  • About four in five Indian students in an NCERT survey linked their anxiety to schoolwork and exam results. From 2026, CBSE’s optional second board exam in May gives Class 10 students another chance.
  • Exam pressure on students can slowly wear down their peace of mind, curiosity, playtime and belief in themselves.
  • Even high scorers can get so caught up in marks that they never stop to ask what they enjoy.
  • Most parents push out of love. Gentle questions after a result, and a home without comparisons, help children feel safe to try again.
School Exams cannot be the only evaluation of a child's worth

“Not everything that counts can be counted.” – William Bruce Cameron

A child’s growth is one of those things, however carefully we grade it. Exams have a fair place in school life, and marks do tell us something useful. But when they become the only thing a school, or a family, seems to notice, children start to feel it.

Across India, parents and teachers push because they care about a child’s future. Over the years, exam pressure on students has grown heavy enough to shape whole childhoods. In a race for marks, children lose their peace of mind and their confidence in themselves. With a little more balance at home and in school, we can protect both.

What Does It Mean When School Becomes Only About Exams?

The next test starts to decide what children learn and how they spend their days. In an exam-driven school, the timetable bends around the next paper. A long story or a curious question can feel like wasted time.

Some teachers in the UK call such places exam factories. Many of them feel the weight of results as much as their pupils do.

India’s own National Education Policy 2020 names the same problem at home. It says today’s board and entrance exams, along with the coaching culture around them, are “doing much harm”. The policy adds that they replace “valuable time for true learning with excessive school exams coaching”.

How Much School Exams Pressure on Students Is There in India in 2026?

Children feel this pressure too. In 2022, NCERT asked about 3.79 lakh students from Classes 6 to 12 how they were feeling. Around 81%, roughly four in every five, named schoolwork and exam results as a source of anxiety.

For teenagers preparing for entrance exams, the load can feel very heavy. A 2024 study from Udupi, Karnataka, surveyed 570 of them. Of these, 86% reported high academic stress. And 87% felt strong academic pressure from their parents. Often, that pressure comes from a parent’s worry about the future.

CBSE has taken a small step to help. From 2026, Class 10 students can sit two board school exams in the same year. Every student takes the first one in February and March. The May school exams is optional and lets students improve up to three subjects, such as science, mathematics or a language. Only the better score goes on the marksheet.

The board says the change aims to reduce “school exams stress” and discourage “over-reliance on coaching”. For a child who fell ill or went blank in the exam hall, May now offers another try. In July 2026, about 60% of students who tried again had improved their scores.

What Do Children Lose When School Exams Come First?

Peace of Mind and Good Mental Health

Constant pressure often shows up in a child’s body first. Watch for signs of anxiety such as these:

  • Headaches or stomach aches on school days
  • Trouble sleeping in the weeks before exams
  • Sudden irritability, or pulling away from friends
  • Pretending not to care about studies

Test anxiety can also make a well-prepared child go blank in the school exams hall. Under stress, the brain’s alarm system takes over and recall suffers.

So if your child comes home saying everything vanished, believe them. Most of what they revised is still there, and fear only hid it for a while.

How Rote Learning Crowds Out Curiosity

When marks are all that count, teaching slowly drifts towards whatever scores. Children learn model answers and examiner keywords, often without asking why they work.

They understand a subject properly when they have time to ask odd questions and get things wrong. One 2024 paper argues that exam-focused schooling leaves teenagers little room to think creatively.

Time for Play and Conversation

Extra revision time usually comes out of the playground or an unhurried chat at dinner.

In these everyday moments, children learn to share, listen, speak up and lose gracefully. They carry these skills with them long after school ends.

The Chance to Find Their Calling

Children who score well can get so busy chasing the next mark that they never ask what they enjoy.

Toppers are often steered into “safe” streams and then “safe” careers. Some later find themselves in work that never quite feels like their own.

One of our own writers spent over ten years in investment banking and did well. Today she says she would rather have studied fashion design or psychology. She was so caught up in scoring that she never asked herself what she wanted.

School years are the best time for that question. A child with room to explore is more likely to choose a path that fits.

A Steady Sense of Self-Worth

When grades dominate the talk at home and school, children start to see a score as a verdict on themselves.

Singapore psychotherapist Prionka Ray writes, “Failure and shame can become part of their identity. The labels stick for a long time.”

A fever or a worry at home can pull a result down on exam day, and the child blames herself. Many children from low-income homes start school with fewer advantages than their peers. A few low marks can convince them that school is not for them. A patient teacher or parent can help them believe otherwise.

How Can Parents Ease School Exams Pressure at Home?

At home, school exams pressure on students often comes wrapped in love. Most parents push because they worry, and children read that push in their own way.

A strict parent, however loving, can make a poor result feel frightening, with a scolding or cold silence at dinner. Over time, that fear can leave a child resentful until they stop trying altogether.

Children are also quick to notice when a parent seems happiest after good marks. Many study late just to see that pride on their parents’ faces. One Year 6 pupil in England said, “You don’t want to disappoint people.” A child like this may chase marks anxiously and lose interest in the subject itself.

Both kinds of pressure change how children handle a setback. An Australian study of 839 students found that children facing more conflict at home were likelier to hide school problems. Those who felt supported were more likely to ask for help.

So a child who hides an answer sheet is usually dreading the conversation at home. Your first question after a result can change that. You could try:

  • What part of the paper felt hardest?
  • Was there a question you knew but could not finish in time?
  • How are you feeling about it?

A few everyday habits help as well:

  • Praise effort and progress, and keep comparisons with cousins and classmates out of the house.
  • Protect your child’s sleep, and keep one daily activity that has nothing to do with marks.
  • Tell your child, in plain words, that your love does not depend on a result.

A child who feels safe telling you about a bad mark is far more likely to work on it.

How Smile Foundation Helps Children Look Past the Marksheet

Reimagining schools in India

The British documentary series Up has followed the same group of people since they were seven. After its latest film, Dr Haili Hughes wrote, “A seven-year-old is not a finished person.” The same is true of a fifteen-year-old holding a disappointing school exams result.

Schools can keep high standards and still ease exam pressure on students. A single paper should never decide how a child feels about herself.

Smile Foundation carries this belief into its work. In 2024 to 2025, its Mission Education programme supported over 1,85,000 children across 27 states. Many of them come from families where finishing school is never guaranteed. Alongside classroom learning, the programme brings in sports and digital learning, and trains teachers in child-friendly methods.

If you believe every child deserves room to grow, you can stand with Smile Foundation in this work. Donate towards a child’s education.

FAQs

  • What are the effects of school exams pressure on children’s mental health?

Heavy school exams pressure can leave children anxious and short of sleep. Over time, some children begin to link their worth to their marks.

  • How do I know if my child’s exam stress is normal?

Some nervousness before a test is normal and can even help focus. It becomes a concern when it lasts for weeks or starts to affect sleep and friendships. If your child seems withdrawn or hopeless, speak to the school counsellor or a doctor.

  • Why does my child go blank in school exams after studying well?

Under stress, the brain’s alarm system becomes more active. This makes it harder for the thinking part of the brain to recall information.

  • How can parents reduce academic pressure during board exams?

Praise the effort your child puts in, and avoid comparing them with others. Most of all, let your child know your love does not depend on a result.

  • What is holistic education, and why does it matter?

Holistic education looks after a child’s emotional and physical growth along with academics. It includes sport, arts, values and life skills.

  • What has changed in CBSE board school exams in 2026?

Class 10 students can now take an optional second board exams in May. The better of the two scores counts.

  • How common is exam anxiety among students in India?

In an NCERT survey, around 81% of students linked their anxiety to studies and results. It tends to rise in board exam years.

Sources:

Categories
Education Insights

The Difference Between Dropout, Disengagement and School Refusal in Child Education

Nonprofit Sustainability and The Art of Purposeful Profits
Girls laughing while making their way to schools

When a child stops going to school, the reason behind the absence matters as much as the absence itself. Dropout, disengagement and school refusal in child education look similar from the outside but need completely different responses. Getting this distinction wrong can do more harm than good.

Summary:

  • When a child stops going to school, the wrong response can make things worse. Dropout, disengagement and school refusal in child education are three different problems that need three different approaches.
  • School dropout in school education is usually caused by poverty, early marriage, seasonal migration or structural barriers that have nothing to do with the child’s ability or desire to learn.
  • A disengaged child is still showing up, but their grades are slipping, they have stopped participating, and slowly they stop coming in too.
  • School refusal in child education is driven by real anxiety and distress, and the physical symptoms every morning are genuine. This child is not being difficult; they are just overwhelmed.
  • In India, only 51.9% of children who enrol at elementary level complete Class 12. The dropout rate rises sharply at secondary level, where financial and social pressure is hardest to fight.
School refusal in child education

Most mornings, it starts small. A stomach-ache at breakfast that disappears by noon. A reason to stay home just this once. A child who goes very quiet when school comes up in conversation.

By the time a parent realises something is wrong, weeks have sometimes already passed.

When a child stops going to school, the first response is usually to reach for the quickest explanation. Lazy. Difficult. Going through a phase. But a child who expects to be called lazy is not going to tell you they are scared. And a child who expects to be pushed straight back to school is not going to explain why they cannot face it.

The more understanding a parent is in that first moment, the more likely the child is to say what is actually going on.

Dropout, disengagement and school refusal in child education are three completely different situations. What helps one can make the others worse. And that difference is worth getting right.

Not Every Empty Chair Means the Same Thing

When a child is not in school, the instinct is to ask what is wrong with them. The better question is what is happening to them.

School dropout usually comes from outside the child. A family loses household income, a girl reaches a certain age and her parents decide school is no longer worth it or a family migrates and can’t get back to the routine.

School disengagement is quieter. The child still comes in for a while, but their grades slip, they stop participating, and then slowly they stop showing up too.

School refusal in child education is different from both. This child wants to go to school but the anxiety and the physical symptoms every morning make it impossible.

What School Dropout Really Looks Like in India

India’s school dropout numbers reflect structural failure, not individual weakness. Of the 98.5% of children who enrol at elementary level, only 51.9% reach Class 12. The dropout rate climbs from 1.8% at the preparatory stage to 7% at secondary level, where financial and social pressure peaks.

The causes are structural, not personal:

  • Financial hardship that pulls children, especially boys, into early work.
  • Early marriage and domestic responsibilities that end girls’ schooling prematurely.
  • Seasonal migration that breaks the continuity of education for entire families.
  • Poor school infrastructure, unsafe commutes and absent sanitation that quietly push girls out.
  • Caste-based discrimination and disability barriers that make some children feel they do not belong.

Every year a child drops out also carries an economic cost. Each additional year of schooling raises a woman’s future income by 10 to 20%. Each year of school completion adds 0.37% to India’s GDP.

Dropout is rarely a sudden decision. It usually follows months or years of struggle where no one really stepped in.

What actually helps:

  • Financial support and scholarships that keep vulnerable children enrolled.
  • Reaching families early, before absence becomes a pattern.
  • Flexible learning options for children whose lives don’t fit a standard school structure.

School Disengagement: What It Looks Like Day to Day

A disengaged child has not given up, but school no longer feels safe, relevant or worth the effort.

It usually starts small, when the child stops believing they can succeed and no teacher notices. Then slowly, they stop feeling like they belong in the classroom at all.

Signs of disengagement include:

  • Work that is consistently late, incomplete or just not handed in.
  • Dropping out of class discussions and group activities.
  • Absence that starts as occasional but slowly becomes a habit.
  • Going noticeably quiet or irritable when school comes up at home.
  • No longer interested in subjects or activities they used to enjoy.

Disengagement is hard to catch because it moves so slowly. By the time teachers and parents notice, the child has usually been struggling for months with no one stepping in.

What actually helps:

  • One adult at school the child genuinely trusts. This is often the most powerful factor.
  • Lessons that connect to real life and feel relevant to the child.
  • Feedback that builds confidence, rather than grading that just marks them down.

Understanding School Refusal in Child Education

co-education

School refusal in child education affects an estimated 2 to 5% of school-age children, equally among boys and girls. It is most common around ages 5 to 6, when children first start school, and again around 10 to 11, when academic and social pressure picks up.

This child is not being dramatic. Every school morning brings real physical symptoms: nausea, headaches, dizziness, stomach pain. They ease the moment the child is allowed to stay home. That pattern, getting worse in the morning and better by afternoon, is usually the clearest sign that anxiety is driving it.

With school refusal, parents almost always know. The child is at home, not out with friends. Both the child and the parent are often distressed and exhausted by the daily struggle.

Many of these children have anxiety, depression or a clear trigger like bullying, a change at home, or a difficult classroom situation. Children with autism are significantly more likely to find the school environment overwhelming. Some studies put that figure as high as 43%.

School Refusal in Child Education vs. Truancy vs. School Avoidance: What Is the Difference?

These three terms are often used to mean the same thing, but they are not.

  • School refusal in Child Education: Driven by anxiety and distress. The child wants to go but cannot manage the fear. They are at home, with their parent’s knowledge, often visibly struggling.
  • Truancy: Driven by choice, not distress. The child is absent without permission, usually somewhere else. There is no anxiety about school itself.
  • School avoidance: A broader term. Many professionals now prefer “Emotionally Based School Avoidance” because it removes the idea that the child is choosing this.

Calling school refusal in school education truancy does real damage: a distressed child treated like a rule-breaker becomes harder to reach, and the trust between the child, the school and the family breaks down.

What actually helps:

  • Cognitive behavioural therapy, which has the strongest evidence behind it.
  • Gradual reintroduction to school, with support, rather than forcing attendance.
  • Coaching for parents to understand how anxiety cycles work and how to avoid making avoidance worse.
  • School accommodations: adjusted schedules, a safe space, one consistent person the child can go to.

How Smile Foundation Works to Keep Children in School

Many children who eventually stop attending school were showing signs long before anyone stepped in. The earlier someone reaches out, the better the chance of keeping them in.

Smile Foundation’s Mission Education programme runs across government schools in 27 states. The programme covers attendance monitoring, community outreach, teacher training and family engagement, working to keep vulnerable children enrolled before absence becomes permanent.

The children most at risk rarely ask for help. That is why someone has to go to them first. To learn more or support a child’s education, visit Mission Education.

FAQs

  • What is the difference between school dropout and school refusal in child education?

School dropout is usually caused by external factors like poverty, family pressure, or seasonal migration. School refusal in child education is driven by anxiety and emotional distress from within. One is a structural problem. The other is a mental health concern. They need completely different responses.

  • What causes school refusal in children?

The most common causes are anxiety disorders, separation anxiety, social difficulties, bullying, and traumatic experiences. Children with autism, ADHD, or sensory processing differences are much more likely to struggle with it. School refusal is not defiance. The child is overwhelmed and needs support, not discipline.

  • How is school disengagement different from school dropout?

Disengagement is a slow pulling away, emotionally and academically, long before a child stops attending altogether. Dropout is often where it ends up. A disengaged child may still be enrolled but has mentally checked out. A dropout has left entirely. Catching disengagement early can prevent dropout.

  • Can school refusal be confused with truancy?

Yes, and that confusion causes real harm. A child with school refusal is anxious and distressed, usually at home with a parent’s knowledge. A truant child is absent without parental permission and shows no anxiety about school. Treating a distressed child like a rule-breaker makes everything harder to fix.

  • What are the early warning signs that a child is disengaging from school?

Watch for declining grades, reluctance to talk about school, withdrawal from friends, repeated absences, and loss of interest in things they once enjoyed. The signs are often gradual and easy to miss.

  • How many children in India drop out before completing school?

Of children who enroll at elementary level, only 51.9% complete Class 12. The dropout rate rises sharply at secondary level, where financial and social pressure is strongest for both boys and girls.

  • What is the right response when a child refuses to go to school?

Take the distress seriously. Forcing attendance abruptly tends to make anxiety worse, not better. Talk to the school, speak with a mental health professional, and work toward bringing the child back gradually. Acting early makes a real difference.

  • What can parents do if their child seems disengaged from school?

Start by asking, without assuming. What feels hard about school right now? Look for what is driving it: academic pressure, a falling out with friends, or something bigger going on at home. Talk to teachers early. Do not wait for it to become a much bigger problem.

Sources:

Categories
Insights Nutrition

Rashtriya Poshan Maah 2026: Why What Children Eat Matters for How They Learn

Empowering Students as Green Ambassadors
Empowering Students as Green Ambassadors

Every September, India observes Rashtriya Poshan Maah, a month dedicated to child nutrition. This year marks the ninth edition, with a focus on something the campaign has been building toward: how food shapes a child’s brain. When a child is low on iron or protein, their brain is already working against them before the school day begins. The 2026 campaign, running under the theme “Hamari Anganwadi, Hamari Jimmedari,” asks families and communities to take ownership of their local anganwadi centre. The anganwadi in every neighbourhood is where that work has to happen.

Summary:

  • Rashtriya Poshan Maah 2026 runs September 9 to October 8, marking the ninth year of India’s National Nutrition Month under POSHAN Abhiyan. This year’s theme, “Hamari Anganwadi, Hamari Jimmedari”, asks communities to take ownership of their local Anganwadi centres and take active responsibility for how they run.
  • What a child eats shapes how their brain develops, not just how they grow. Deficiencies in iron, protein, or zinc affect concentration and cognitive development in ways that stay with a child through the school years.
  • The first 1,000 days, from pregnancy to a child’s second birthday, are when the brain grows fastest. More than a million new connections form every second. What a mother and child eat during this period shapes development that lasts well into childhood.
  • India still has more stunted and wasted children than any other country, and anaemia levels among young children rose in the most recent National Family Health Survey, even as nutrition programmes expanded.
  • The 2026 campaign focuses on five areas: dietary diversity and protein intake, hot cooked meals at Anganwadi centres, community management of those centres, linking nutrition to early learning, and maternal nutrition through the PMMVY scheme.

“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” – Nelson Mandela

One measure of that treatment is what lands on a child’s plate.

Every September, India sets aside a month to focus on what children eat. Rashtriya Poshan Maah 2026 is the ninth edition of that campaign. For years, nutrition was measured mainly in weight, height, and the prevention of illness. This year, the campaign is saying something it has been building toward: what a child eats shapes how their brain develops, and that is something classrooms and growth charts are both measuring.

Rashtriya Poshan Maah 2026 - Smile Foundation

What Is Rashtriya Poshan Maah 2026?

Rashtriya Poshan Maah is the month India has set aside to act on that. Observed every September since 2018, it runs under POSHAN Abhiyan, the government’s national nutrition programme. This year marks the ninth edition, running from September 9 to October 8, launched in Varanasi.

This year’s theme is “Hamari Anganwadi, Hamari Jimmedari,” meaning “Our Anganwadi, Our Responsibility.” Responsibility is the word the campaign keeps returning to. The government is asking communities, families, and local institutions to take ownership of their local anganwadi centres and treat them as theirs to use and support.

The Nutrition-Learning Connection: Why Food Shapes a Child’s Brain

What a child eats reaches the brain long before it shows on a growth chart. When there is not enough protein, the brain has fewer cells to build thought with. When iron is low, less oxygen gets through, and the child sitting down to learn at nine in the morning is already working harder than they should just to stay with the lesson.

Iron deficiency is common among young children in India, and it does not stop at the school gate. A child who was anaemic at three carries those effects into the classroom. They find it harder to concentrate, harder to hold on to what they heard, harder to build one day’s learning onto the next. Zinc, iodine, folate, and Vitamin A are each part of this picture. A diet short on any one of them quietly narrows what a child can do in school, in ways no amount of extra teaching can fully make up for.

The First 1,000 Days and Cognitive Development

Most of that narrowing happens before a child ever reaches a classroom. The first 1,000 days, from pregnancy to a child’s second birthday, are when the brain is growing the fastest it ever will. In those two years, more than a million new connections are forming in the brain every second.

What a mother eats during pregnancy, and what the child eats in those first two years, shapes how many of those connections form and how strong they become. What children eat before they can walk or talk shapes how they will think when they are old enough to read. Poshan Maah 2026 is centred on this window.

India’s Child Nutrition Challenge: What the Numbers Show

Since POSHAN Abhiyan launched in 2018, India has made real progress on child nutrition. But the most recent National Family Health Survey found that anaemia levels among young children had gone up, not down, even as programmes grew. India still has more stunted and wasted children than any other country.

Across much of rural India, families are no longer going hungry the way they once did. But a child’s plate is often too narrow: heavy on rice or wheat and short on protein, iron, and fresh vegetables. That fills a stomach but doesn’t help a developing brain.

Five Focus Areas of Rashtriya Poshan Maah 2026

This year’s campaign has five priorities; all aimed at getting a more nourishing plate in front of a child.

  • Dietary diversity and protein intake: Getting more variety onto a child’s plate is the first goal. Pulses, millets, eggs, seasonal fruit, and vegetables are being encouraged alongside the staple grains that already dominate most diets. Protein gets the most attention here, because young Indian children are not eating nearly enough of it.
  • Hot cooked meals at anganwadi centres: The campaign is moving away from packaged rations that go home with children and may never be eaten. A fresh meal prepared and served at the centre is a meal you can be sure the child had. It also gives children a reason to come in.
  • Community ownership through management committees: Anganwadi Management Committees are being asked to play a more active part in how their centres run. Nutrition menu boards are going up on the walls so families can see what their children are eating. When parents can see the plate, they care more about what goes on it.
  • Nutrition and early learning: This year’s campaign treats food and learning as one job, not two. Getting a child well-fed is part of getting them ready for school, and the anganwadi is where both begin.
  • Maternal nutrition through PMMVY: The Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana marks its tenth year this September. Over 4.65 crore mothers have received direct financial support through the scheme, totalling Rs 21,000 crore. It supports women during pregnancy and the months after, when what a mother eats is still shaping the child.

How Anganwadi Centres Are Driving Change Across India

India has over 14 lakh anganwadi centres, reaching 7.5 crore children and 1.10 crore pregnant and lactating women. These centres are where the work of Poshan Maah 2026 has to happen in practice.

This year, 2 lakh of them are being upgraded under the Saksham Anganwadi programme. Workers are being given smartphones connected to the POSHAN Tracker, which lets them monitor children’s nutrition in real time and follow up when a child is not making progress. In Uttar Pradesh alone, 24,000 such upgrades have been approved. The intention is straightforward: a worker with better information can act sooner, and a child who is struggling gets noticed before the problem compounds.

Since 2018, more than 150 crore Jan Andolan activities have taken place across India, through schools, households, health centres, and community gatherings. Much of that has been carried by people and institutions who took the campaign up at a local level.

What Children Need to Eat for Better Learning

Most of what children need for healthy brain development is already part of the Indian diet. The challenge is making sure it reaches them consistently and in enough variety.

Foods That Support Cognitive Development in Children

  • Eggs and pulses: Good sources of protein and choline, both of which support memory and brain cell development
  • Millets: High in iron and zinc, and a traditional part of Indian cooking. The government has been promoting them as a more nutritious alternative to refined grains
  • Dark leafy greens: Spinach, fenugreek, and amaranth supply iron and folate, which matter especially in the early years of brain development
  • Seasonal fruits: Guava, papaya, and banana provide Vitamin C, which helps the body take in iron from plant-based foods
  • Dairy: Milk and curd offer calcium, protein, and Vitamin B12, all of which children need as their brains grow
  • Fish and meat where consumed: Good sources of omega-3 fatty acids, which play a role in how the brain develops

Most of these foods are already in Indian kitchens. Poshan Maah 2026 asks families to use them more regularly and in greater variety.

How Smile Foundation Supports Child Nutrition in India

Why One-Size-Fits-All Nutrition Fails Across the Life Cycle

For many families, consistent, varied meals are hard to maintain under financial pressure. A child who has started missing school is also harder to reach through the programmes designed to support them.

Smile Foundation’s Mission Education programme runs in 27 states, reaching over 160,000 children. It works alongside POSHAN Abhiyan and other government schemes, keeping children in school and connecting families to health and nutrition support. Children who drop out of school lose access to midday meals and the health checks built into school-based programmes, which is why Poshan Maah 2026 addresses both together.

Smile Foundation’s Mission Education programme accepts donations and volunteers from those who want to contribute to this work directly.

FAQs

  • What is Rashtriya Poshan Maah 2026?

India’s ninth National Nutrition Month, observed every September under POSHAN Abhiyan. It runs September 9 to October 8, with the theme “Hamari Anganwadi, Hamari Jimmedari” — Our Anganwadi, Our Responsibility — focusing on dietary diversity, protein intake, hot cooked meals, and the link between nutrition and learning.

  • What is the theme and what does it mean?

“Hamari Anganwadi, Hamari Jimmedari” translates to “Our Anganwadi, Our Responsibility.” It asks communities to take ownership of how their local anganwadi runs, rather than treating it as a government service.

  • How does child nutrition affect learning?

Children who get enough protein, iron, zinc, and other micronutrients develop stronger neural connections and better attention. Iron deficiency alone can slow cognitive development, and the effects of poor nutrition in early childhood carry into the school years.

  • What are the first 1,000 days?

The period from pregnancy to a child’s second birthday, when more than one million neural connections form every second. What a mother eats, and what the child eats in those first two years, shapes how the brain develops for years afterward.

  • What foods support brain development?

Eggs, pulses, millets, dark leafy greens, seasonal fruits, dairy, and where consumed, fish or meat — together supplying protein, iron, zinc, and omega-3 fatty acids that growing brains need.

  • How can individuals support through Smile Foundation?

Smile Foundation’s Mission Education programme reaches over 160,000 children across 27 states, connecting families to nutrition and health support alongside classroom learning. The programme welcomes donations and volunteers.

Sources:

0%