Locating Migrant Children among Out of School Children

Introduction

After a long consultation, Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) issued an advisory on ‘Devising Pathways for Re-engaging Out of School Children (OoSC)[1].’ While the advisory sought to ‘identify, track and re-engage’ Out of School Children, it lacked a coherent strategy for reducing the drop-out rates among the children of migrant communities. The advisory mentions children of migrant communities only twice in the context of tracking and mapping, completely ignoring the contexts in which these migrations happen and affect the education of a vast number of children. Various official sources have estimated the number of Out of School Children from around 60 lakhs (IMRB-SRI, 2014) to 2 crores (NSSO, 2014). Among these Out of School Children, 40 to 60 lakhs children belong to categories like that of street children, children of seasonal migrants and so on[2]. These are children whose existence and exclusion are not even recorded and are invisible. State's failure to frame the preventive strategies/interventions as well as curative strategies to re-engage them has put Out of School Children at the greater risk. The attention to the education of children of migrant communities is important not only from the view of educational deprivation and exclusion but also because the lack of it can perpetuate intergenerational transmission of inequality.

The context of education for children of migrants in India

Children, who constitute a major chunk among the migrating population, are central to the investigations into the social consequences of migration. Studies like that of Deb (2005) make it evident that internally migrated children are more vulnerable to exploitation like child labour, physical abuse, sexual abuse and so on. They are deprived of even basic requirements of food and shelter, leave alone education, health, and other benefits. One might tend to de-politicise the hardships of the underprivileged childhood by seeing it an inevitable consequence of distress migration. Understanding the deprivation of migrant children in the current socio-political realities and economic transitions of India is essential to understand that their deprivation is no accident.

Children belong to migrant families form a critical mass of those who are educationally underprivileged (Srivastava, 2003; UNESCO & UNICEF, 2012). In a survey done by SSA (2013), migration of families was found as one of the prime reasons for children leaving schools. The assessment reveals that around 12 % of total drop-out happen because of the families migrating from rural parts to urban areas seeking better life opportunities. Even then there is no systematic state intervention in large scale to include these children in the mainstream education system or prevent them from child labour. Irrespective of Right to Education act (2009) legislation, and several other schemes such as the scheme for universal primary education through SSA, Education Guarantee Scheme etc., migrant labour children are unable to get access to education, leave alone equitable quality education.

Policy responses:

Various state governments have made the efforts to address the issues faced by the children of migrating communities. In 2009, Gujarat government initiated a migration card system where the children of migrant communities could avail hostel facilities and attend the tent-schools set-up at the work sites. Maharashtra government started distributed Education Guarantee Cards (EGC) among the children of migrant communities, to track them and provide education at the site. State governments in Kerala and Madhya Pradesh have started tracking children of migrant communities and have made provisions to provide them with on-side education. While these policy measures show the willingness on the part of governments to engage with the issue, they lack the structural understanding of the phenomenon which leads to the marginalization of the children.

The formal and non-formal schooling programs, based on the policy measures taken by state and central governments ignore the cultural and linguistic heritage of migrating children. Also, the tent-schools do not respond to the demand put up by the children belonging to various regional diversities. In a typical tent-school set-up at a work-site in Kerala, researchers found that many children in the camp came from the states like Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and it was difficult for local government to provide for a common curriculum for these children. State policies along with the policy measures were taken by the central does not take into account the children left behind by the parents while migrating to cities or the children who have migrated independent, creating a vacuum in the policy pronouncements. These formal and non-formal schooling programs for migrant children lack a holistic understanding of the issue. While children are provided with the education, their nutritional, healthcare, and recreational needs are not taken care of.

The education exclusion of migrant children (likewise children belong to other disadvantaged groups) is rooted in the historical development of education discourse in the country. The second-class non-formal education provided by the state to out of school children itself act as an impediment to equitable education to all children in our country. According to Kumar (2006), promoting non-formal education schemes discounted many structural issues that were responsible for keeping children out of school. He argues that because of the ignorance about educational deprivation arising out of systemic deficiencies, Indian education system is confronted with a serious crisis.

Conclusion:

Though India has made significant progress over the time in enrolling students in schools, the number of out of school children still remains high. The Right to Education Act, 2009 duty bounds the state to provide free and compulsory education for all children without any discrimination. Hence, the state needs to go beyond merely ‘identifying and tracking’ migrant children to formulate a comprehensive policy which meets all the needs of such children.

References

Deb, S. (2005). Child abuse and neglect in a metropolitan city: a qualitative study of migrant child labour in south Kolkata. Social Change, 35(3), 56-67.

Deshingkar, P. and Akter, S. (2009). Migration and Human Development in India, Human Development. UNDP (Human Development Research Paper, 2009/13). Retrieved from https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/19193/

Kumar, R. (2006). The Crisis of Elementary Education in India. SAGE Publications.

Ministry of Human Resource Development. (2013). Survey for Assessment of Dropout Rates at Elementary Level in 21 States. Retrieved from https://ssa.nic.in/research-studies-document_old/survey-report-on-out-of-school-children/list-of-studies/Dropout%20Study2021 %20States.pdf

National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO). (2010). Migration in India 2007–08 (64th round) New Delhi, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India.

Srivastava, R (2012), ‘Internal migration in India’, in Internal Migration and Human Development in India, Volume 2, UNESCO-UNICEF National Workshop Proceedings

Srivastava, R., & Sasikumar, S. K. (2003, June). An overview of migration in India, its impacts and key issues. In Regional Conference on Migration, Development and Pro-Poor Policy Choices in Asia (pp. 22-24).

SSA. (2007). Retrieved from https://ssa.nic.in/ssa-framework/coverage-of-special-focus-groups/?searchterm=migration

UNESCO (2013). Social Inclusion of Internal Migrants in India. Retrieved from https://www.unesco.org/

UNESCO, & UNICEF. (2012). Policy Briefs: For a Better Inclusion of Internal Migrants in India. Retrieved June 3, 2015, from https://www.ruralindiaonline.org/resources/ policy-briefs-for-a-better-inclusion-of-internal-migrants-in-india/

UN-HABITAT. 2012. Migrants’ Inclusion in Cities: Innovative Urban Policies and Practices. UNESCO/UN-HABITAT.

Van de Glind, H. (2010). Migration and Child Labour: Exploring Child Migrant Vulnerabilities and Those Children Left Behind. International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labor working paper. ILO.

[1] https://ncpcr.gov.in/showfile.php?lang=1&level=1&&sublinkid=886&lid=1223 retrieved on 07/04/2018

[2] Understanding Children’s Work Programme: Joining forces against child labour: interagency report for The Hague Global Child Labour Conference 2010, Geneva, ILO, 2010.