Transcript Getting Children from work to Schools

Getting Children Out of
Work and into Schools
The starting point for liberation of children
from their lives of tension and tribulations,
their exploitative conditions of living, the
violence and suffering which they endure in
the family and at work place, if the child is
a girl then their gender discrimination and
the issue of early child marriages is when
they are in schools…
Challenges to UEE – The Indian
Experience
There are over 100 million children out of
school
7 million attend non-formal centers and 112
million go to formal schools
Only 65% of school going children in India
reach grade 5 and those that do manage to
complete primary schools cannot even read
and write
Some facts on child labour in
India
India has the largest number of child labour in the
world in absolute numbers
The estimates are as follows:
 Census of India (1991) : 11.28 million
 NSS 1993-1994 : 13.5 million
 Operations Research Group : 44 million
90.87% of working children are in the rural areas
with a concentration of girls contributing to work
in agriculture
Policy initiatives towards UEE –
Central Government
FROM
The National Policy on Education (1986)
which set as its goal “to provide free and
compulsory education to all children upto
age of 14 years before the commencement
of 20th century”
Provision of non formal education for
children who are unable to go to schools…
Policy on EGS & AIE - 2001
TO
Emphasis on strategies to mainstream
children into full time day schools
Transitional arrangements like bridge
course preparatory centers, drop-in centers
to help children join full time day schools
Policy initiatives towards UEE –
State Governments through DPEP
Emphasis on access and bringing out of school
children into schools
Large scale initiatives to provide community
schools, alternate schools, bridge course centers in
several states to reach out to unserved children
among tribal, scheduled castes, girl children,
children in agriculture and also in informal sector
by governments. For example, in Rajasthan,
Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh,
West Bengal and so on.
Case of Andhra Pradesh - DPEP
Recognition of an inextricable link between the program of
elimination of child labour and UEE
Provision of quality of education as a continuous process
and not a prerequisite for bringing children to school
Alternate schools, NFE centers and bridge schools as
purely temporary strategies to mainstream children to
formal schools and not as separate streams of education
School viewed as an institution that protects all rights of
children including the right to education
Recruitment of 1,37,052 additional full time qualified
teachers in the last 6 years
NGO Initiatives and Partnerships
Recognition among NGO partners that being out of school
is in itself harmful to children’s overall development and
growth
Strategies being worked out through community
mobilisation and bringing pressure on government to build
a norm that no child must work and that every child must
attend full time day school
Campaign for an amendment to the Constitution of India
for recognising Education as a Fundamental Right
resulting in the 93rd amendment to the constitution on the
right to education passed by the union government in
November 2001
NGO – Rural Initiatives
NGOs (for eg. MVF, CREDA, Vidhayak Sansad) have highlighted the
need to look at children in agriculture and those of migrant labourers
and children belonging to marginalised communities and mainstream
them into formal schools
Shift in strategies of NGOs from a target based approach with focus on
the most vulnerable, to a more universal approach based on
recognition of children’s right to education
Well orchestrated intervention through community mobilisation and
institution building processes for building a social norm against child
labour and for UEE
Creative interventions to prepare older children withdrawn from work
for studentship through bridge courses, special schools, motivation
centers and so on acting as transitional arrangements
Emphasis on Preparing the school system for accepting older children
and being sensitive to the background of 1st generation learners and not
set up alternate schools parallel to the existing structures.
NGO – Urban Initiatives
NGOs – (for eg. Cini Asha in Calcutta, Pratham in
Mumbai and Balajyothi in Hyderabad) show how even
children such as street children, children of sex workers,
children employed in informal sectors, domestic servants,
migrant labour and also children belonging to minority
communities and lower castes have joined schools
Strategies include community mobilisation and preparation
of older children through preparatory centers, bridge
courses(residential and non-residential). Also remedial and
coaching classes for 1st generation learners in schools
Building of networks and alliances to bring pressure on
government
Conclusion
The perspective that violation of child rights will
not be tolerated results in planning for every child
out of schools to access schools
This perspective recognizes that a child is never
too old to enroll him/herself into full time day
schools and has a conviction that it is possible to
provide education for all
It recognizes the parental demand for education
cutting across all diversities and there willingness
to make enormous sacrifices to send their children
to schools
It brings pressure on the governments to respond
to the demand generated and forces a modification
of normative and administrative frameworks that
govern access and retention of all children in
schools in order to be responsive to the 1st
generation learners
The Right Place for Children to
be is the School
Schools provide education
In addition schools are institutions that break the inter
generational cycle of poverty and deprivation
Schools become the first step towards equity and access to
cultural capital
In demanding sensitivity on the part of the education
system the process of democratisation of schools begins. In
this sense schools become site for contestation of power
Once children are in schools they are no longer hidden but
are in public space under public scrutiny. They are in the
reckoning and thus can gain access to all the rights they are
entitled to as children. In fact the right place for children to
be in is the school