Across India, education is seen as the key to continuing the country's economic rise, and including more people in the newfound boom. India is known for turning out doctors and engineers, and opportunities abound for educated job-seekers. But for many in India, getting a quality education – or any education at all – remains a challenge. In fact, nearly half of India's children don't get past primary school.
There are many reasons for the high-dropout rate, according to Sujata Khanna of Butterflies, an educational NGO.
"Many of these children are working, whether it's working within their household, taking care of a sibling while their parents are out, or working outside and earning money for their family," Khanna said. "Or it could be that the school is too far away for them to walk."
To get kids back in school, Butterflies decided to bring the classroom directly to areas with the highest dropout rates.
The group gutted a bright yellow school bus and remade it into a mobile classroom, called the Chalta Firta School. It's equipped with a small library of books, and shelves of crayons and toys, everything a teacher might need to run a classroom.
On hot days, and when attendance overcrowds the school bus classroom, class is held outside. In one class, two teachers circle a group of 30 children, ranging in age from 6 to 14. The teachers go through a condensed lesson plan aimed at getting children ready to enroll in a formal school. They cover everything from math and science to English and yoga.