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Getting Children Out of Work and into Schools

Getting Children Out of Work and into Schools.

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Getting Children Out of Work and into Schools

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  1. Getting Children Out of Work and into Schools

  2. 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…

  3. 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

  4. 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 • OperationsResearch Group : 44 million • 90.87% of working children are in the rural areas with a concentration of girls contributing to work in agriculture

  5. 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…

  6. 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

  7. 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.

  8. 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

  9. 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

  10. 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.

  11. 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

  12. 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

  13. 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

  14. 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

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