India is the fasting growing major economy and ranks 7th in terms of GDP. Yet, the state education is abysmal with social indicators putting India lower than countries like Bangladesh which have a much lower per capita income compared to India. India has the largest number of out of school children. The lack of quality public education and public healthcare in the country can be regarded as the biggest failures of modern India. Education not only improves the quality of life and empowers people, but has also been proved to be a major escape route from poverty. Lack of education is not just depriving people of a constitutional right but a basic human right as well. Those with fewer than 4 years of schooling are now generally considered “educationally poor”, and recognized as a distinct category by the United Nations. The recent Right to Education Act has been made it an unconditional Fundamental Right for every child to have an education up to the age of 14, and a conditional one even above the age of 14 in India.
There is a requirement for comprehensive high quality data in order to interpret the ground situation effectively. Indian census is a relatively limited and restricted source of education data. Therefore, there is a need to supplement the Indian census with other sources of data like National Election Study, National Sample Survey (NSS), and National Family Health Survey (NFHS) etc.
Literacy is a basic variable in education considering low educational development