Over 110 million school aged children worldwide are not enrolled in schools. Education plays an important role in anybodys life. Nothing liberates and empowers a person to self-sufficiency quite like an education. Without an education the cycle of poverty remains inevitable. India is home to 20% of the world’s out of school children and accounts for 20% of the world’s gender gap in elementary education. Adding to this is the staggering dropout rate among the rural children as they are often needed by their parents to work in the fields to support their family income. The gender disparity in literacy rates is primarily due to age-old traditions and norms that discriminate girl children and women from gaining economic opportunities and freedom through education.

Scan’s programmes promote education as a right, especially for girls and build skills training in economically productive activities for women and other vulnerable groups and develop effective strategic leadership through enhancement of management and leadership skills among the youth. Based on this concept, Scan-India intends to establish formal education centers in the target area to educate the rural children child labourers, street children and school drop outs.

Vocational skill training:
India suffers from a high unemployment rate, especially among young people. Vocational Skill training is imperative for the poor and unemployed youth to find employment. A vast majority of the youth in the villages are unemployed due to lack of job-oriented skills and are leading a difficult life of poverty and deprivation. Vocational skill training is the best option to increase the chances of getting a job.

Johnson Institute of Vocational Training {JIVT}
The JIVT (Johnson Institute of Vocational Training) is presently the most important project of SCAN-India. JIVT offer courses to young people in Computer applications, Literacy, spoken English, tailoring and entrepreneurship skills with a support from the Rotary Club of Schleswig, Germany. The Centre is conveniently located in the heart of Chittoor town where many youth are learning various job-oriented skills. These facilities would be expanded and many job-oriented courses will be introduced in the future for the benefit of the rural un-employed youth. We believe that this effort will raise the self-esteem of the underprivileged youth to learn an important skill which will empower them to get a job and a steady income.