Explitation of children and being out of schools
Millions of children in our country do not go to schools. Instead, they become subject to
untold misery and hardship, working at farms and in factories; in sweatshops and at
homes. They live lives of drudgery, surviving against all odds-uncared for, unprotected
and unnoticed.
It is necessary to appreciate that much of the lives of ordinary citizens in our country are
so integral to the lives of poor children and their sweat and toil. It is their long hours of
work, under conditions of total submission and servility, without any support, fear of
abuse, insults and humiliation, risks to health they work for our upkeep. In fact the ‘roti,
kapda and makaan’ (food, clothing and shelter) in our lives must have child labor at some
stage or the other in the production chain which are local and global at times.
Young girls work under scorching heat, with blistering sore feet dug into the marshy
land; these children do the sowing, weeding, harvesting of vegetables, lentils, cooking
oils and all the food we relish. When they are not working in the fields they are burdened
with the monotony of work at home cooking, fetching water, carrying siblings and doing
all the domestic chores. Children are also engaged in tending to cattle, sheep, goats, in
fishing and work in the poultry, contributing to producing milk and milk products, and all
other food items. Children’s labor is mixed in most of the food we eat in our country.
The clothes we wear too breathe child labour. Hundreds and thousands of children work
in production of hybrid cotton seeds, wrapped in violence, embedded in worn out bodies,
nausea of daily lives, knocking headaches, giddiness and mental depression, wasted
childhood toiling relentlessly and getting burnt under heat and dust.The cotton ginning
mills, handloom weaving looms as well as the spinning machines and power looms too
employ children. The silk one wears, and the process of sericulture has an abundance of
children working in damp, dark, poorly ventilated, and have loud, deafening music
playing in the background.
Our homes, offices, business centers, entertainment places, in fact every building owes its
creation to children and at the cost of their childhood. With growing demand in the
building and construction industry, children leave their villages to work on sites without
water, sanitation and shelter, around brick kilns lifting head loads, brick by brick on the
head and piling clay moulds to bake under the blazing sun.
The homes of most middle and upper classes too depend on young girls and boys
working as domestic servants. They are either full time workers trafficked from their
homes or part time workers living with their parents in the same town. There is an
undercurrent of suspicion about their honesty and they are rebuked more often than not
for being lax and untidy in their chores.
Lacking a societal norm in favour of their right to education multitudes of children are in
the work force as child labour.
There is a lack of societal shock or outrage that children are out of school and are at
work. Tolerance of child labour is explicit in all arguments, beginning with the position
that poor families depend on children for their livelihood. “How can families manage
without the income earned by the children?” This question is repeatedly asked by almost
every section in the society and also by policy making bodies — dealing with protection
of children and child rights — operating at the local, national and global levels. It is even
suggested that arrangements must be where children can work and learn at the same time.
(A kind of win-win situation where both children and their families benefit.)
Elaborations of such a view can be seen in the kind of questions that often get raised:
“Aren’t poor children better off acquiring skills on the job? Schools are bad and the
quality of education poor, is it not a waste of time to go to schools?” In fact, it is also
stated that being in schools would only alienate children from their surroundings and
render them useless to the community that they belong to. “Would they not be better off if
they had a learning process that reintegrates them into their society and culture?” In a
way, such arguments imply that children can continue to work till solutions are found to
resolve all the issues.
A poor parent’s decision to send the child to school is predicated, and pre-decided, by an
atmosphere that repeatedly states that they are too ambitious and impractical in intending
to do so. These values and attitudes seep through all layers of society with such ease that
they are internalised by the parents themselves. Parents cannot take education of their
children for granted and have to, in fact, even offer explanations for sending their
children to school, something that is otherwise considered normal.
demand for education in the country today with 75% of all school-going children in India
attending government schools. In fact in nine States of India over 90% of all schoolgoing
children attend government schools.1 Almost all these States are regions that are
considered backward in all respect. They are the ‘Hindi belt’, the tribal pockets, the dry
land monsoon fed agricultural zones and so on. With unwavering faith in education, they
persistently send children to school, making enormous sacrifices in the process.
There are innumerable examples of poor children who have persisted in schools even
though schools were inadequate both in terms of infrastructure and sensitivity. This
yearning among the poor parents to send their children to schools even if there are not
enough classrooms or schoolteachers, even when there is no drinking water or toilets, and
even if the children are not treated well is never adequately explained.
In fact, several millions of them are literally paying through their nose to get what they
consider a proper education in the English medium private schools. Those who cannot
make this are content with sending their children to the government schools.
What is important therefore is to pose the question why even today many children
belonging to poor families go to schools, the same schools that are castigated as being ill
equipped and providing irrelevant education? They do so because they value education.
They realize that they can beat the cycle of deprivation, marginalisation and poverty only
if their child is in school.
It is in understanding the answers to this question that the true insight into the thought
processes that govern the parents in poor families emerges and a measure of the latent
demand for education can be made. The view that the poor cannot send their children to
schools results in distracting attention from the often heroic attempts made by parents to
send their children to schools and in retaining them there..
For those of us who have taken education for granted and send our children to school as a
matter of habit a new academic session means new books, school uniforms shoes, school
bags, lunch boxes, and arrangements for transport. It means new resolves to do well this
year and give children all support to see them through as good students. For the poor
children, who have never been to school before but studied through the residential bridge
course camps, or those who have long absented from school and want to get back, and
those withdrawn from labor force, a new academic year is a nightmare. It is full of
anxiety and fear, having to cross hurdles, convincing the school authorities that they too
deserve to be in schools. It is a wait for the defining moment to be in a school as a
student.
It is far less complicated for the ten to twelve year olds to defy local authorities and
power structures and be released as bonded labour than to be accepted as students in the
present education system. It seems that even for the girls rebelling at home using all the
weapons of resistance they have, like sulking, crying, not eating and not talking virtually
offering individual sataygraha was relatively uncomplicated than having the school
accommodate them. Schools are unmindful of the difficulties the girls had to endure to
escape getting married, even seek divorce through community, combat gender
discrimination and assert their rights to education. Instead of supporting older children to
embark on a journey of self-discovery, the schools often think of them as a burden and
work out ways of pushing them out of the system. They are just not ready for the backlog
of children aspiring to join schools.
Thus, once they enter the portals of the schools there are innumerable pressures on them
for payment of all kinds of charges to the school, for school fees, maintenance, sports,
library and so on. Many of them being poor can ill afford such expenditures. In spite of
the fact that most State governments have issued orders that no child be denied admission
for want of birth certificates, caste certificates, transfer certificates, income certificates
and so on, the schools have not taken such government orders and circulars seriously.
Schools continue to throw them out because of inadequate documentation. This is more
so in the upper primary and high school levels. In many instances, older children have
been asked to take entrance and eligibility tests to qualify for re-admission into schools.
If they did not qualify the rigors of such tests, the schools have unceremoniously rejected
them to fend for themselves, instead of taking the children and preparing them for the
class they ought to be in. Added to this, the language the children speak, their cultural
background and family circumstances are all considered as being unsophisticated and
therefore these children are made to feel unwanted.
There are many ways in which schools make it difficult for a child to survive in the
system. All the rules governing the procedures at the school level including admission,
transfer and so on have been developed for a situation where all children come to school
as a matter of habit. Since the poor are culturally not equipped to handle schools, the
formal and informal systems of school management, which have evolved over a period of
time, seem intricate to them. For example, the poor lack the skill to get birth certificates,
medical certificates, income and caste certificates, which need dealing with more than
one government department. They are much less familiar with the rules of examination,
attendance, promotion, procurement of transfer certificates and so on. Thus poor parents
are easily intimidated and often even the most benign rules and regulations appear
deviously intractable and seem to have been formulated for the sole purpose of
preventing the child from joining or continuing in school.
It must be the responsibility of the education system as a whole to give support to the
child to enjoy her right to education and remove all barriers in the process of children’s
journey for completion of school. Barriers are to be removed to enable a smooth
transition from one class to the next until children complete class ten. No child must be
allowed to get pushed out of school.
A programme for universalisation of education must include preparation of the entire
education department at all levels to accept the backlog of millions of children in full time
formal school with their complex backgrounds. The education department must define the
role and responsibility of all its functionaries at the national, state, district, block/mandal
level for reaching out to all out of school children and to ensure that all children enjoy their
right to education. Al planning must be for the universe of children in the age of 6-14 years
in an area for children both in school and out of school. It must strengthen the capacities of
all classes from 1 to 10 and not focus on primary school alone, in the name of being
‘practical’. Simultaneously there has to be clear message sent across the nation that children
have a right to education and so must not be engaged on work.
1. Social mobilisation to create a norm that children must not work and attend schools
The entire program of bringing out of school children into schools must be taken up in a
campaign mode at the national level. Messages must be sent that the system means to reach
out to all children out of schools setting a tone for a normative as well as a policy framework
resonating with the aspirations of the poor at the lower level. There is a need to involve a
large band of youth in the campaign to identify children, draw up their lists, negotiate with
employers, convince parents, involve gram panchayats to resolve conflicts in favour of
children’s right to education and so on. Out of school children would thus become visible
through a process of campaign and public debate and discussions on children’s rights.
2. Continuous process of physical verification of children.
The data on the numbers of children actually enrolled and retained in school is often
exaggerated. All planning must base itself on an honest assessment and record of the actual
retention of children in schools. Underestimation of out of school children results in denial
of children their right to education. For example many girls who are in the ages of 12 to 14
years, children as migrant labour and in trafficking, children working as full time domestic
workers in houses and apartment complexes are just not accounted for. They are neither in
the list of school going children or out of school children. Physical verification of attendance
registers by the local bodies and the School Education Committees and their authentication
of this data before it is passed on to the next level of authority is absolutely necessary. They
have also to be given training for this.
3. Preparation of older children who have been withdrawn from work
There is unevenness in the educational attainments of out of school children. Some may
have dropped out of school in the early stages of primary education and seek to comeback
after a long gap of four to five years while some others may not even have been enrolled in
schools. Arrangements for residential bridge course camps, motivation centres and any other
local initiative that emerges in the process of campaign and mobilization needs to be taken
up. None of these are to act as substitutes to schools or even as transitional institutions.
They are to be regarded as ‘arrangements’ to encourage older children join full time formal
day schools. Simultaneously a message is sent that no child is so old that he/she cannot get
back to school.
4. Provision has to be made to save older children the embarrassment of joining in
class one by introducing special coaching classes and bridge courses enabling their
smooth transition as students and into classes according to their age. There must be a policy to accommodate late starters, older illiterate children or school dropouts who desire to join schools. Rules such as fixing the last date of admission, insistence on standards and quality even before the child has been admitted act as a deterrent. An instruction that no child is denied a seat at any given point of time is a must.
5. Provision of residential facilities for children in difficult circumstances
Special efforts such as providing residential facilities must be made for children of migrant
labour, children belonging to disadvantaged groups, street children, orphans, child labour
and adolescent girls.
6. Modification of school governance systems to address the backlog of children
joining schools, to respond to the needs of the first-generation learners and also to
ensure retention of all children in schools. Poor parents are easily intimidated if they have to deal with schools, with which they are unfamiliar. They lack the skill to get birth certificates, medical certificates, income and caste certificates, which need dealing with more than one department. They are much less familiar with the rules of examination, attendance, promotion and procurement of transfer certificates and so on. Schools should take up the responsibility of transferring the students from one school to another and not the children or the parents. An institutional arrangement of this nature would go a long way in seeing that there is no disruption in children’s studies.
7. Involvement of gram panchayats and interface with community and the department
of education
Local bodies are to be involved in all the exercises of Annual Work Plans and given training
for the same. The local bodies must review the status of out of school children though
periodic meetings in consultation with education department, and take up critical bottlenecks
regarding children’s rights and school related issues to higher level authorities. Lists of
children who have been absent for more that a month are to be handed over to the gram
panchayats and read out in the gram sabhas. An enquiry into the cause of absence and
resolution of the problems has to be made immediately allowing for the reintegration of the
child into school. The department of education at all levels must respond immediately to all
such petitions by issuing appropriate circulars and government orders, as well as providing
supplies and infrastructure.
8. Officials at all levels should take up the responsibility for ensuring that children are
retained in schools
Currently the department is prepared to meet the demands of families that are fully aware of the principles that govern schools. In order to access out of school children, the entire school system and the education department at all levels must be trained to modify procedures just so that they accept older children in schools and help in making a smooth transition from one class to the next.
9. Co-ordination with other departments
Mobilising children back to schools is a complex task and there needs to be an active
coordination between the labour, revenue, police, welfare and education departments
facilitated by the education department.
The function of schools in the context of developing societies where a large number of
children remain out of school too needs to be redefined. When children are out of school
they can never be reached out to. Their lives of tension and tribulations, their exploitative
conditions of living, the violence and suffering 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 all go unnoticed. Once they are in schools they are in the reckoning and thus
can gain access to all the rights they are entitled to as children.
Schools like any other educational institution is also instrumental in democratising
distribution of all those resources [technical and social skills, certificates, general
capacities] which help improve the life chances of those who survive in the system. Since
it is only by going to schools that the children’s capabilities are enhanced and eventually
as adults there is a possibility of new choices and opportunities for them. Stated
differently, schools become institutions that break the intergenerational cycle of poverty
and deprivation. Children no longer grow up to become what their parents did as
marginalized and vulnerable workers. In fact even during the process of their children
gaining access to schools the families of the poor witness a change in their lifestyle and
mode of thinking and living their daily lives and these families cease to reproduce the
same values and culture, which keep them marginalized. They begin to assert and
question with greater confidence and take informed decisions. This gives them an access
to cultural capital. Schools thus become the first step towards equity. Consequently the
process of democratisation of schools results in the process of democratisation of the
society.
It is only when children attend schools and are exposed to a world of ideas and
knowledge they gain the power to negotiate with authorities, the confidence to bargain
effectively for their share in the national resources and all the accoutrements that are
necessary to live a life with dignity and self –esteem. School is a site for contestation of
power.
In a more immediate sense schools are the only institutions, which can keep children out
of work and abolish child labour. Thus schools perform a radical function as they become
protector of child rights. In fact the right place for children to be in is the school. And
therefore the battle for schools must be won!
