When Diksha completed Class 8, she wanted to keep studying. But as one of seven daughters in a family supported by her father’s income as a fruit-seller, continuing school was no longer financially possible. She dropped out and began working at a beauty parlour in Rajasthan’s Pali district.
Her ambition stayed intact. Diksha saved from her earnings, hoping she could return to education. Two years later, she had enough money to study again. By then, her age and the gap in her schooling made it difficult to return to the regular school system.
Through community outreach, Diksha learnt about another course. She enrolled through the Rajasthan State Open School, alongside her sister, continued working while studying, and passed Class 10 with 72% in 2025. Today, she is preparing for Class 12 and saving towards opening a beauty parlour of her own.
Diksha’s journey reflects a reality that India’s education system increasingly needs to respond to: learning journeys are rarely as linear as our systems assume them to be. UDISE+ 2024–25 estimates that of a cohort entering Class 1, 62.9% are retained through Class 10 and 47.2% through Class 12. At the same time, the data challenges a familiar assumption about girls. Among students transitioning from Class 10 to Class 11, girls progress at a higher rate than boys: 77.9% compared with 72.4%.
That tells us something important. The question is increasingly less about whether women want to learn, and more about whether the system can continue to serve them when life interrupts the expected pathway through school. Poverty, migration, marriage, care responsibilities, work, illness or examination failure can all interrupt that journey. And once a learner falls outside the regular school system, finding a way back can be difficult.
{{/usCountry}}That tells us something important. The question is increasingly less about whether women want to learn, and more about whether the system can continue to serve them when life interrupts the expected pathway through school. Poverty, migration, marriage, care responsibilities, work, illness or examination failure can all interrupt that journey. And once a learner falls outside the regular school system, finding a way back can be difficult.
{{/usCountry}}The scale of this challenge is significant. Earlier this year, a high-level meeting convened by the Department of School Education and Literacy on out-of-school children cited Periodic Labour Force Survey estimates showing that more than two crore young people aged 14–18 are currently out of school. Economic pressures, domestic responsibilities and livelihood needs were among the barriers identified. This is where flexible pathways such as open schooling, either through the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) or State Open Schools, become critical. They can accommodate lives that no longer fit the structure or timetable of regular school. For a young woman who is working, married, caring for children or returning after several years, that flexibility can create a way back into education.
Access to these alternatives has historically been unequal too. NIOS data from 2005–06 shows that women accounted for just 31.7% of enrolment, compared with 68.3% for men. NIOS’s April–May 2026 Class 10 results underline another challenge. More than 1.15 lakh learners registered for certification, of whom 1.02 lakh appeared and nearly 68,000 were ultimately certified, meaning roughly one in three learners who appeared did not reach certification in that examination cycle.
The distance between registration and certification is where much of the work lies. Someone returning to education after a gap may need help securing documents, rebuilding foundational skills, understanding an unfamiliar examination system and preparing for subjects she has not studied in years. She may also be earning a daily wage, managing a household or caring for children. Distance to a study or examination centre, travel costs and lost wages can become barriers of their own.
Anu’s journey shows what becomes possible when a pathway back to education also opens doors to new opportunities. After her father, a government employee, died unexpectedly, the family was offered a compassionate appointment. The position, however, required a Class 10 certificate. Anu’s mother and elder sisters had never attended school, making Anu the only family member eligible.
For Anu, returning to education carried an immediate purpose. Through second-chance education and open schooling, she resumed her studies and completed Class 10. The certificate did more than mark the completion of a school grade. It created an opportunity for her family that would otherwise have remained out of reach.
Her journey shows the value of a second chance. For learners whose education has been interrupted, completing Class 10 can reopen routes to further education, skilling and employment. Designing for completion therefore means supporting the entire journey back—from counselling and documentation to academic support, accessible study and examination centres, flexible schedules and consistent local follow-up.
Diksha’s experience through Educate Girls’ second-chance Pragati programme for adolescent girls and young women brings us back to where we began. What she needed was a pathway that recognised the life she was already living and allowed her to keep moving forward.
India needs multiple pathways to learning because interruption is already part of millions of education journeys. Our education system must make it possible for learners to start, pause and restart as their circumstances change. The task now is to ensure that when they return, they have the support and flexibility they need to complete what they came back for.
(The views expressed are personal)
This article is authored by Gayatri Nair Lobo, CEO, Educate Girls.