Educational Status of Rural Youth in Sangrur District of Punjab

The proposed study is an effort to study rural youth with the objective to find out the educational status of rural youth, their dropout rate and the reasons for dropout. The study was conducted in Balewal village of Sangrur district by interviewing all the young persons in the village having age between 15-35 years. Sample size was 281 respondents (136 males and 145 females). The findings of the study revealed that 68 percent of the respondents had education up to school level only and out of these a half could not make it to higher secondary level. The reasons for drop out at various levels were either due to lack of use of education as perceived by youth followed by expensive education and inability to get admission in college due to poor academic performance. The study concluded that high quality education leading to occupational opportunities may solve many problems confronted by rural youth.