The right to education is a fundamental right. Yet we note that children who join school often drop out of schooling. Dropout rate is defined as the proportion of children who discontinue school after enrolling in the schooling system. Thirty percent of children leave school before completing five years of schooling and 50 percent leave before completing 8 years of schooling. 

Two additional concepts of stagnation and wastage are important in the educational setting. Education is necessary for the development of the person and effective contribution of the person towards society. When the education received is of little or no help to the person then it is termed as wastage of education. It is important for the growing child to use the knowledge he or she has gained from education, in its absence there is wastage of the resources. In addition the educational system needs to keep pace with demands and needs of the context and bring about changes in the curriculum and knowledge content of different educational fields. If it cannot do so then educational stagnation takes place. Thus at the primary school level students initially join and after a few years leave school, leading to wastage of the resources employed to educate the child. It becomes essential to retain the child back in school to complete his/her education. Often children are retained in the same class due to unsatisfactory progress. This further demotivates the child to continue studying in school. 

There are various reasons for school dropout, stagnation and wastage. These reasons fall into three categories, namely, socio-economic, psychological and educational. The absence of schooling activities in the vicinity, lack of awareness of necessary education among parents, poverty, lack of interest in education, absence of educational environment, examination failure and, the need for children to work for economic reasons are major reasons for leaving school. In addition, poor systemic support in terms of rules and procedures of the schooling system, curriculum that is alien to the needs of the students, poor quality of education, and poor equipment also play a role in increasing school dropouts.Efforts to decrease the school dropout rate are government programs such as National Literacy Mission, Sarv Shiksha Abhïyan (Total Literacy Campaign) and Mid Day Meal Scheme. Kerala has the highest literacy rate in the country, and other states are also doing their best to decrease school dropouts.