IDENTIFYING CAUSES OF AND SOLUTIONS FOR RELATIVELY LOW TRANSITION IN EDUCATION FROM UPPER PRIMARY LEVEL TO SECONDARY AMONG GIRLS FROM THE SC COMMUNITIES IN TRANSITIONAL AREAS OF LUCKNOW, UP : A QUALITATIVE STUDY

This study seeks to examine the causes of high dropout and low transition from upper primary level to secondary among girls from the Scheduled Caste (SC) community in Lucknow, UP, India. Based on existing gap, this particular study specially focuses on the transitional areas/urban village landscape to collect information. It also strives to look at solutions and follows a comparative approach, keeping both a target group and a control group. This is essentially an exploratory study and is supported by qualitative data. For the purpose, in-depth interviews were conducted in 30 households from the SC community where the target girl has completed upper-primary education but not transited to secondary level. In-depth interviews were also conducted in 30 control households from the general caste/non-SC community where the target girl has completed upper-primary education and transited to secondary level and their respective parent/guardian (n = 30), recruited purposively from 5 villages from the district of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. The findings of the study show that poverty is a core deterrent to transition from upper primary to secondary levels among girls from SC community, whereas lack of toilet, caste based discrimination, perceived lack of safety for travelling further to continue secondary education and lack of perceived return from education were other important deterrents to transition.