The Harsh Reality: Understanding the Struggles of Disadvantaged Children

Across India, millions of children wake up each day not to the sound of a school bell, but to the weight of circumstances they were born into. They carry hunger, fear, and uncertainty – not schoolbags. These are disadvantaged children: young lives shaped not by choices, but by the compounded effect of poverty, social exclusion, and emotional neglect. Understanding who these children are, what they endure, and what we as educators and citizens can do about it is not just an academic exercise – it is a moral imperative.

Defining disadvantaged children 🔗

The term “disadvantaged child” goes far beyond financial poverty. It describes any child who is systematically denied the resources, relationships, and opportunities critical to healthy growth. This deprivation operates across three main dimensions: social, economic, and familial.

Social disadvantage 🔗

Children from marginalized communities – including Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and religious minorities – frequently face exclusion from mainstream society. Many communities and groups like disadvantaged castes and women have been historically excluded from education. In rural areas, social isolation compounds the problem further, cutting children off from peer learning, extracurricular activities, and civic life. In rural areas, people from scheduled castes and tribes, particularly women and girls, experience exclusion from education altogether.

Economic disadvantage 🔗

Poor families often cannot afford basics like uniforms, books, or school fees. Even if education is free, the hidden costs add up fast. Many children need to work to help put food on the table. Children from poor households are late to receive schooling, experience more dropout and work during study, irrespective of castes and religion. Family income is the most important determinant of child and adolescent education and well-being.

Familial disadvantage 🔗

Disadvantage is also deeply rooted in the home environment. When parents are illiterate, overburdened, or absent, children lose their first and most important educators. When parents cannot read or write, they often do not see the value in education for their kids. Many children from disadvantaged backgrounds stay at home to work instead of attending school. This creates a vicious cycle – illiterate parents raise children who do not go to school, who then grow up to be illiterate parents themselves.

Multiple deprivations and their impact 🔗

What makes the situation of disadvantaged children particularly severe is not one single problem – it is the accumulation of multiple deprivations hitting simultaneously. Poverty, malnutrition, poor education access, and emotional neglect do not operate in isolation. They feed into each other, creating a cycle that becomes increasingly difficult to break with each passing year.

Malnutrition and cognitive development 🔗

Food insecurity is among the most visible consequences of poverty for children. India is home to 46.6 million stunted children, a third of the world’s total. Nearly half of all under-5 child mortality in India is attributable to undernutrition. Poor nutrition in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life can lead to stunted growth, which is associated with impaired cognitive ability and reduced school and work performance.

Under-nutrition has significant negative effects on brain and cognitive development of children. In India, under-nutrition among poor children imposes a greater burden in rural areas. Rural children are particularly vulnerable because they receive foods having low nutritional values along with discriminatory distribution of food within the household. A child who is chronically hungry simply cannot concentrate, retain information, or participate meaningfully in classroom activities.

Educational deprivation 🔗

India continues to face one of the worst educational crises in the world. Over 12.97 million children are out of school. Illiteracy levels are as high as 30%, and dropout rates stand at 12.6 percent as per the UDISE Plus 2021-22 report. Even among those enrolled, learning outcomes remain poor. According to Pratham’s Annual Education Report for rural India, after three years at school, over 25% of children still cannot read and 50% struggle with basic arithmetic.

Children from low-income families often face inadequate access to quality schools, limited learning resources, and a lack of basic necessities such as food, healthcare, and stable housing. These factors contribute to lower academic performance, higher dropout rates, and reduced opportunities for future success.

Emotional neglect and mental health 🔗

The emotional dimension of disadvantage is the least visible but arguably the most damaging in the long term. In developing countries, nutritional deprivation occurs in a complex sociocultural and economic milieu. Children with protein-energy malnutrition are also emotionally deprived largely due to the lack of stimulation from the same environment. Parental death or serious illness and occasionally broken families become additional contributors of physical and emotional neglect.

Children who are often neglected develop depression, anxiety, and mental health disorders as they grow older. They are also considered more prone to violent behavior and criminal activity. The pessimism, depression, conflict, violence, and limited economic and social opportunities inherent in poverty often result in chronic family stress. Children internalize family stress, which may be heightened by neglect and the emotional or physical withdrawal of caregivers. Unlike visible forms of abuse, emotional neglect leaves no marks – yet its effects on a child’s self-esteem, learning capacity, and social development can last a lifetime.

Child labor as a symptom of compounded deprivation 🔗

Longer periods of poverty in families, non-availability of and poor accessibility to schools in the locality, and lack of proper transportation have forced many children to leave school and work in hazardous situations. When a child enters the labor market early, the last door to upward mobility often closes. People living in poverty may stop going to school so they can work, which leaves them without literacy and numeracy skills needed to further their careers. Their children, in turn, are in a similar situation years later, with little income and few options but to leave school and work.

Case study: Govinda’s story 🔗

To understand what multiple deprivations look like in real life, consider the story of Govinda, a nine-year-old boy from a small village in central India. Govinda’s father is a daily-wage laborer, and his mother works as a domestic helper in a nearby town, leaving before dawn and returning after dark. Govinda has two younger siblings. There is rarely enough food for all three children, and nutritious meals are a luxury the family cannot afford.

Govinda attends the local government school – when he can. On most mornings, he helps his grandmother carry water from the community well, a task that often makes him late. His school has two teachers for five grades. On days one teacher is absent, Govinda’s class is merged with another, and he sits through a lesson he does not understand. He has never owned a book of his own.

At school, Govinda is quiet. His teachers know little about his home life. When asked to read aloud, he hesitates – not because he is unwilling, but because he is too hungry to focus. He has no one at home to help him with homework. By the age of ten, his parents are already considering sending him to work at a brick kiln with a contractor who promises a small weekly wage. This income, however modest, could keep the family from debt during lean months.

Govinda’s story is not exceptional. It is the everyday reality of millions of children across India. What defines his situation is the intersectionality of disadvantage – each problem reinforcing the next. Hunger affects concentration. Concentration affects learning. Poor learning reduces future earning. Reduced earnings perpetuate poverty into the next generation. This cycle can have long-lasting and devastating consequences, including reduced academic achievement, increased dropout rates, and limited access to higher education and job opportunities.

The role of teachers and society 🔗

Breaking the cycle of deprivation requires more than government policy – it demands a transformation in how teachers and communities respond to children like Govinda. The good news is that this transformation is possible, and it often starts in the classroom.

Teachers as the first line of change 🔗

Teachers are often the biggest source of inspiration for disadvantaged children. A supportive teacher can change a student’s life. A teacher who notices that a child is consistently absent, distracted, or withdrawn is often the first adult outside the family to identify that something is wrong. This early identification matters enormously.

Effective teachers of disadvantaged children go beyond curriculum delivery. They build trust. They create classroom environments where every child, regardless of background, feels seen and valued. Teachers need training to understand the challenges these children face and how to help them overcome those challenges. When students have dedicated, well-trained teachers, it can make all the difference in their education.

UNESCO’s work with teachers in underserved communities globally reinforces this. Teacher Rodney Naidoo, working in one of UNESCO’s Learning Cities, encapsulates the mission well: his goal is to ensure that every learner completes their schooling – going so far as to travel during holidays to provide extra tuition to disadvantaged students without remuneration. His motivation? Seeing students excel against all odds.

A holistic approach: beyond the classroom 🔗

Teachers alone cannot carry the full weight of systemic deprivation. Society – families, communities, NGOs, and government – must co-create solutions. A holistic approach involves working with communities, parents, and authorities to create a supportive learning environment. Focus on girls’ education ensures adolescent girls stay in school and are protected from early marriage.

India’s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the Right to Education Act are key legislative steps that guarantee free and compulsory education to children between ages 6 and 14. However, as researchers have consistently noted, it is not enough to make laws; they need to be augmented by more efforts. Unless there is a strong and universally available state welfare apparatus, the education of working-class children will continue to be sacrificed.

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 introduced critical reforms, including a Gender Inclusion Fund and Special Educational Zones aimed specifically at disadvantaged and vulnerable groups. It also proposes that students should have exposure to a flexible choice of subjects for higher education and vocational streams at a young age. This is important for children like Govinda, who may not have the luxury of a purely academic path but could thrive with vocational skill-building woven into their education.

What communities can do 🔗

Community engagement is equally vital. When local leaders, parents, and community organizations are involved in children’s education, outcomes improve significantly. The communities in which children grow up should be free from prejudice, stereotyping, and bias so that every child has a fairer chance at life. Community-based dialogue that brings about cohesion within various social demographics can help unlock the fullest power of India’s diversity and move us, as a nation, towards greater equity.

A multi-pronged approach is necessary, including improving the quality of education, bridging the urban-rural divide, enhancing gender balance, and making education more inclusive. Merely enrolling children in schools is not enough. The quality of education plays a significant role in shaping a child’s prospects. Teachers must be well-trained, curricula must be relevant, and the learning environment should stimulate creativity and critical thinking.

Organizations like CRY India and Bal Raksha Bharat operate on this understanding – addressing not just school access but nutrition, health, child labor, early marriage, and parental awareness simultaneously. Their work demonstrates that when the whole ecosystem around a child is supported, the child’s chances of thriving multiply significantly.

For Govinda to have a future different from his present, it will take a teacher who notices him, a community that values him, policies that protect him, and a society that refuses to accept his deprivation as inevitable. Education can be the catalyst needed to pull families and communities out of the cycle of poverty. Knowledge gives children the power to dream of a better future and the confidence needed to pursue a full education, which in turn will help generations to come.

What do you think? If a child like Govinda sat in your classroom, what is the one change – in your teaching practice or in your school environment – that could make the most meaningful difference to his learning? And beyond the classroom, how can local communities take more active ownership of ensuring that no child in their neighborhood falls through the cracks of systemic deprivation?

References

1. https://www.noblenonprofit.org/education-in-breaking-the-cycle-of-poverty/
2. https://borgenproject.org/poverty-and-education-in-india/
3. https://www.cry.org/blog/importance-of-education-for-underprivileged-children/
4. https://balrakshabharat.org/blog/poverty-and-inclusion/what-is-the-impact-of-poverty-on-children-in-india/