Education for Equality

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EDUCATION FOR EQUALITY: EMPOWERMENT OF MIGRATING RURAL
CHILDREN
ON USING EDUCATION FOR SOCIAL MOBILIZATION OF THE RURAL CHILDREN
MIGRATING TO THE CITIES OF INDIA

Shanto Baksi
Professional Social Worker and Independent Development Consultant, Kolkata, India
Email: shantob@gmail.com

Full Paper Individual
August 5, 2014










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Abstract

The aim of this study is to find out and present a model of providing education to the migrant
working children coming from the villages to the cities of India in search of better livelihoods. It
also tries to understand why this migration is taking place from rural areas to urban areas in
India. The present paper is about three educational interventions among the children of such
migrant workers in three areas of India.
1. West Bengal: the brickfield workers
2. Odisha: the traditional fisher-people
3. Gujarat: the salt pan / factory workers

The study takes a two way approach: -
To find out how the migrating children can receive education despite their unusual
lifecycle of spending 12 months / year in at least two destinations: places where they
migrate and the place of their origin.
The inputs that are introduced by the interventions and the outputs that are achieved: a
comparison of inputs (efforts) vis-a-vis outputs (results).

Keywords: Children; Migration, Education, Development;









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Contents

Sequence Headings Page Numbers
1. The Background and Objectives of the Study 04
2. The Interventions 10
3. Conclusion: Impacts and Learning 16
Impacts 16
Learning 17
4. Acknowledgements 19
5. References 20
6. Appendixes: 21
The methodology used to prepare the study 21
The budget for 1 Child Development Center (CDC) 22

Index of Tables

Serial Titles Page Numbers
1. The Journey: Migration from Rural areas to Cities 04
2. Different Learning Styles 12
3. Goals and Objectives of the courses 14
4. Timetable of a CDC 14



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The Background and Objectives of the Study

In India migration takes place for various reasons such as: -
Work / Employment, Business, Education, Marriage, Moved at birth, Moved with family
and Others
The exodus from rural areas towards the big cities in India may be presented in this manner:
table 1.

Table 1: THE JOURNEY: MIGRATION FROM RURAL AREAS TO CITIES
The Core Issue

The Process The Destination
The livelihood options are better in
the big cities; there is also the
attraction of city life and, these
together provide a chance to make a
difference that pull people towards
the cities.
The migrations towards the cities are
not always planned and in various
circumstances they cannot be
planned; migration for better life by
vulnerable people is mostly unsafe.
The population which comes to the
big cities need to adapt to situations
and circumstances which are not
always conducive to decent life;
hence the emergence and existence
of shanty towns and slums.

Possible Reasons

Consequences Possible Impacts over the Lives of
the People

Lack of sectorial / state development
plans / poor implementation of
sanctioned rural and urban
development plans.

The development efforts for
underprivileged people are not
implemented properly and
consequently people continue
to stay underdeveloped.

Circumstances like these are very
hard, create destabilization /
joblessness and push people to
accept any and every job
opportunity. In most cases people
end up in exploitative situations.

Unemployment or
underemployment

Working for very low wages
When families go through situations
like these then women and children
suffer most.

Frustration / Alcohol
addiction etc. for men and
often all the rights of women
and girls are violated:
domestic violence

Vagabond youth
1


1
In 2011 the Indian Penal Code [IPC]-recognized juvenile crimes increased by 10.5% over those
of 2010: 22,740 IPC-recognized crimes by juveniles were registered during 2010 which
increased to 25,125 cases in 2011. Major Juvenile crimes came under the heads of Theft
(21.17%), Hurt (16.3%) and Burglary (10.38%) in 2011.
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Note: - situations like war and
natural calamities also contribute in
people getting displaced and coming
towards the cities in search of new
beginning in life.
for very long hours for a very
long time

Doing things / work
unwillingly

Unsafe migration ending in
trafficking

Possibility of getting involved
with crime: in many situations
it has been seen that people
with insecure future are easy to
be misled / pursued for doing
improper activities.


Children do not go to or
dropout from schools

Working as child labor
2


Girls getting married and
becoming pregnant before 18
years of age, consequently
facing many problems and
giving birth to premature
babies and many children do
not live beyond 5 years age
3
.


The sections of the population that are in focus of this study are the children: migrating children.
The unorganized sector is a big chunk of the present Indian economy employing about 90% of
the workers and generating about 50% of the Gross Domestic Product. A considerable part of
these workers are children.


2
Around the world, an estimated 215 million boys and girls aged 517 years were engaged in
child labor in 2008, 115 million of them in hazardous work: report of International Labour
Office.

3
Worldwide in the year 2010, 7.6 million children died before their fifth birthday and there were
nearly 360,000 maternal deaths. Almost all child and maternal deaths occur in developing
countriesa fifth of under-five deaths and more than a quarter of neonatal deaths (deaths during
the first month of life, which account for two-fifths of all child deaths) occur in India alone.
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Child labor is a global phenomenon. In India these are the areas / sectors where children are
mostly involved as labor, but there can be many other places and situations where a child is
being used as a labor.
Cultivation, Agricultural Labor, Livestock, Forestry, Fishing, Plantation, Mining and
Quarrying, Manufacturing, Processing, Servicing and Repairs, Construction, Trade and
Commerce, Transport, Storage and Communication, and Other Services (child soldiers
and child sex-workers).

The trend of using children as workers is more evident among people / communities that are
vulnerable. A group of people / community becomes vulnerable because of various reasons: -
The people that are illiterate
The people are socially and culturally vulnerable / backward
The people are traditionally engaged in occupations that have a high child labor
component
The area is undeveloped: lack of infrastructure
The people are economically poor
The area is natural calamity prone

According to the Census of 2001 there are 1.26 crore [=12 million 60 thousand] working
children in the age group of 5-14 as compared to the total child population of 25.2 crore [=250
million 20 thousand]. There are approximately 12 lakhs [1.2 million] children working in the
hazardous occupations/processes [18 occupations and 65 processes] which are covered under the
Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act of India. However, as per survey conducted by
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National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) in 2004-05, the number of working children is
estimated at 90.75 lakh. The number of working children has further gone down in NSSO
survey 2009-10 to 49.84 lakh
4
.

The present paper is about three educational interventions among the children of migrant
workers and migrant child workers in three areas of India.
1. West Bengal: the brickfield workers and their families come to West Bengal mainly
from the neighboring states of Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Odisha. At their place
of origin these people mostly work as agricultural labor: the areas of their origin are not
very fertile consequently yield only a single crop in a year. Search for better income is
the main reason for migration. They spend six to eight months as seasonal workers. They
work as families / units. Their children do not go to school and, stay inside a lifelong loop
of vulnerability.
2. Odisha: the traditional fisher-people: a community fighting for its survival in the face
of ongoing coastal area development and, declining supply of fish in the sea. They
migrate mostly within the state; some of them also go to Andhra Pradesh and
Maharashtra. In these places the fisher-people are not always able to stick to their main
occupation and are forced to do other odd jobs with low wages. These people are used to
doing fishing as a family unit. Here also the children hardly go to school, and when they
migrate the children hardly have any future.

4
http://labour.nic.in/content/faq/child-labour-faq.php
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3. Gujarat: the salt pan / factory workers and their children go through a similar type of
migration and social situation (like the brickfield workers in West Bengal), with only one
difference: they mostly migrate from places within Gujarat.
All of them seek opportunities to migrate to the cities, and will continue to do so until and unless
they get better opportunities of earning at their places of origin.

Individuals, institutions, and communities have their respective dreams: the rural people of India
today dream of becoming urban. It is this dream of the villagers which pushes them towards the
cities. They move towards the cities in search of a better life. The migration of people in search
of a better life is a part of the history of human evolution.

The old cities do not gladly welcome the rural people; the cities need them as workers but do not
like them as human beings. The incoming villagers remain misplaced and misfit in the cities for
a long time.

Very few of the migrants from the villages to the cities of India carry a lot of wealth, high culture
and social status with them. Most of them are very poor and uneducated people belonging to the
laboring castes and tribes of India.

The problems of brickfield workers, saltpan workers, and traditional fisher-people after
migration:
Brickfield and saltpan: these manufacturing units are located in remote areas mostly away
from locality; therefore these migrant people dont get the chance of mixing with local
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people. In India brick making and salt making are intensely manual labor oriented
industries: to make maximum profit owners use illiterate and underprivileged people who
are ready to work for very low wages for a very long time.
In the case of traditional fisher-people the loss of their profession forced them to go for
work in other locations: within their state and sometimes outside of their states. These
fishermen are engaged in this profession for generations and as a result of this these
people dont have any other skills besides fishing, consequently when they enter job
market as unskilled labor and only get odd jobs / things that others (people of that
locality) are not doing willingly: garbage collectors, janitors (toilet cleaners), domestic
worker and etc.

Cultural, educational and intellectual wealth is easy to carry and easy to use and, it generates a
lot of power and status in our societies. The poor villages-to-cities migrants of India may have a
better chance of having a better future if they are educated before and during their migration.

The present generation of migrating brickfield workers, traditional fisher-people and salt pan
workers are unskilled. Education can make the next generation of these people semiskilled, and
from there the future generations may become such skilled workers who will have the knowledge
to think about and get their basic rights first as human beings and then as citizens of India.

This paper presents the story of three educational interventions within these three migrant rural
communities, and the impact of these interventions over the lives of these people especially
regarding the development of children.
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The Interventions

All the featured interventions were started by Loreto Day School, Sealdah, Kolkata, West
Bengal, India.

The Brick Field Schools (BFS) project The Brick Field Schools (BFS) project is for the
children of migrant brickfield workers. These children do not get any opportunities regarding
education this project is all about providing education to them. The majority of these children
do not speak Bengali, and in West Bengal the medium of education / instruction in the
Government schools is mainly Bengali. So there is no point in admitting these children in those
schools; thus the intervention logic used for BFS is Lets bring the schools to the children, and
seasonal schools were opened inside the brickfields. The medium of instruction is Hindi.
Teaching in mother tongue is best for all the children; however, in the rural areas of West Bengal
teachers who can teach in languages like Bhojpuri, Mundari, Santhali, Oriya and Chhattisgarhi
are difficult to find. All the children speak and understand Hindi, so we decided to teach in
Hindi.

The Salt Pan Schools (SPS) project Its an intervention like the BFS; with only one difference
since its migration within Gujarat all the children speak the same language (different dialects of
Guajarati). The medium of instruction is Gujarati.

The Schools for Children of Fisher-people in Odisha This intervention was for the
communities of traditional fisher-people. These people mostly dont migrate along with their
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families, the section of population that stays back are mostly women and children. These
children are mostly out of school due to lack of good habits and discipline: no one is inspiring
them to go to school. Most of them get admitted in local Government schools, but lack of
support and guidance from home pushes them towards becoming dropouts. This project was
planned to mainstream the children and also to retain them in schools. To achieve this objective
educational support centers were opened in the coastal villages. The medium of instruction the
government schools and educational support centers is Odiya.

The schools inside brickfields in West Bengal and saltpans in Gujarat, and the education centers
in the coastal villages of Odisha have a similar kind of structure, and they can be called Child
Development Centers (CDC).
The work of brick and salt making are seasonal: work starts from November and ends in
June, thus the CDCs for these children also run for 8 months. The CDC in coastal villages
of Odisha runs for 12 months since the children dont migrate and mostly stay in one
place.

Majority of the children coming to CDCs are first generation learners or their parents have some
level of illiteracy. They dont have the habit of studying, and beside this the projects also faced a
problem of dealing with the lifestyle of these children.
Education must be fun, otherwise children will lose interest. The underprivileged children
are very smart because they have to survive in a cruel world, where no one is going treat
them as children: these circumstances lead to situations where these children create ways
to make themselves happy. Now our curricula and teaching methods must be more
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interesting in comparison with the activities and objects that these children use to make
themselves happy. If their own world is more attractive, then they will not come to the
educational efforts such as the educational centers that are made for them.

Time is another constraint: these children understand the value of time in their own way and like
to learn things faster than average school going children. To teach things faster in a short span of
time, a teacher needs to understand the preferred learning style of the learner. It is the job of the
teachers to find that out for each child.

A list of few learning styles are given below, this will give the teachers an idea about different
learning styles. It will also help them to understand the needs of different children: Table 2.

Table 2: DIFFERENT LEARNING STYLES
Naturalistic Its for those children who like and respect nature and are interested in subjects like
evolution and the environment

Linguistic Its for those children who are good with words, who like to write and read a lot

Intra-Personal / Reflective Its for those children who are good at self-analysis and reflection, drawing
conclusions from their own experience, setting goals and making plans

Interpersonal Its for those children who are good at persuading and selling or at teaching others
and who can read other people's moods well

Body oriented / Physical Its for those children who are good at sport, dance, and handicrafts

Musical Its for those children who are good at music and rhyme, and who have a natural
sense of rhythm

Mathematical / Logical Its for those children who are good with numbers and, appreciate step-by-step,
intuitive and logical explanations

Visual / Spatial Its for those children who are good at art, visualizing, and navigating


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The Course Layout: the courses try to provide a compact package of education for these children,
containing basic literacy, numeracy, creative and physical skills, and general awareness related
materials, which will empower the children with some knowledge and skills.
1. Literacy ability to read and write ones own name in Hindi/mother tongue and also the
ability handle small sentences
2. Numeracy ability to count and to do addition-multiplication and subtraction-division in
Hindi / mother tongue
3. General Awareness about health and hygiene, nature and culture in Hindi/mother
tongue
4. Creative and Physical Skills ability to express oneself through stories, songs, dance,
drawing and painting, clay modeling and, to take part in sports and games.

To achieve the results 2 methods were used: -
Lesson plan to have better control and effective learning in the sites of learning (not
always a classroom often an open space)
Management of the Class in many places teachers are required to teach children of
different age groups with different levels inside one class in an open space

The children coming to these CDCs are in the age group of 4 to 14 years, but majority of the
children are between 6 to 12 years, and they were divided into 3 groups according to their age,
up to 6 years of age, from 7 to 10 years, and children that are above 10 years of age.


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All the teachers appointed in CDCs received induction training and periodic training during the
implementation process. The goals and objectives of the course are given below in table 3.

Table 3: GOALS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE COURSES
1 Language Skills

Ability to Understand

The child who will complete the
course and the child will have basic
command over mother tongue/Hindi

Ability to Speak

Ability to Read

Ability to Write

2 Number Skills

Ability to do Addition -
Multiplication

The child who will complete the
course and the child will have basic
command over numbers related
activities

Ability to do Subtraction-Division

3 General Awareness Knowledge about Health and
Hygiene, Nature and Culture
The child, who will complete the
course, will have some basic
orientations about health and
hygiene related issues and, about the
surrounding nature and culture

4 - Creative and Physical Skills To have fun and enjoyment about
learning
This will help the children become
self-motivated and take creative
interest in the CDC


The daily time schedule of 30 minutes x 6 periods = 3 hours for a CDC was designed to support
the different learning styles / needs of different children: table 4.

Table 4: TIMETABLE OF CDC
Improvement of
Language Skills
Improvement of
Number Skills
Improvement of
Creative Skills
Improvement of
General
Awareness
Improvement of
Physical Skills
Tiffin / Food
0:30min 0:30min 0:30min 0:30min 0:30min 0:30min


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These 3 interventions were implemented through local partner organizations; this was done as
part of providing sustainability to these efforts. It generated employment at the local level.
Whenever a project is implemented by local people close to the target beneficiaries the
project is more sustainable in comparison with projects that are totally implemented by
outsiders / technical people. As of May 2014 all these interventions are running for the
development of underprivileged Indian children.

















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Conclusion: Impacts and Learning

The conclusion is divided into 2 parts the impacts thats been made by these 3 interventions, and
the learning from these interventions.

Impacts: brickfields and saltpans - these words are not associated with the term Education and
using these places to run educational development related projects itself created an impact in the
nearby localities. The simple approach of these 2 interventions made it possible to reach the
primary goal of migrating people coming back to work in the same brickfields and saltpans just
because they wanted to access the services of the CDCs running inside these places for educating
their children.
On an average 30% to 70% people come back to the same brickfield and saltpan, the
number oscillates because the migrant workers dont have any choice about where they
will go for work: wherever the income is more they go to that place / region of India
(mostly a group of people travel between 3 / 4 nearby sites/states).
After 3 years of intervention in one brickfield and saltpan, we have found that the number
of people that are coming back to the same place is more than 50% and the reason is this
that a CDCs is running in that place.

The CDCs inside brickfields and saltpans are a kind of assistance to these migrant workers, their
children are in one place for 3 / 4 hours for 5 days a week, this helped the adults to focus on their
work without worrying about children being lost / injured. They are more focused and as result
they are earning more, consequently production also increased and the owners are also happy. In
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the beginning the owners of brickfields and saltpans were not too keen about allowing NGOs to
open CDCs inside their working areas, but increase in production changed their mindset and
some of them even made some contribution towards the expenses related to running of a CDC.

The most important impact is this that the children are happy to learn and they come every day
and even requests the teachers to come on the weekends too: these CDCs are the only window of
opportunity for them to be connected with the larger WORLD outside of their own world.

The schools for children of fisher-people were kind of easy intervention in comparison with the
interventions in the brickfields and saltpans. The intervention was inside a village and the
children were from that village and there were no obstacles in the way of reaching the children.
The impact can be simply shown by the numbers: the project was planned to admit 1,000
children from these communities into schools within a time period of 18 months within 10
months 1,329 were admitted into schools.

Learning: Any person less than 18 years in age is a child, and there are lot of children who are
working inside brickfields and saltpans: we can fight with the owners and make complaints
against them for using children and their self-defense is this that they dont give contracts to
children, they offer contracts to the men / heads of families and if they use their wife and
children in completing the contract then that is not the employers fault, but most importantly if
we insist on this line of protest then the owners will immediately close the CDCs, and the
children will miss out on the chance of receiving education. This will also be on-behalf-ism on
our part. The migrant workers and their children will remain passive about their rights.
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We realized that a movement against the exploitation must come from within the people
that are suffering: the outsiders can only facilitate the process of social change. Here the
educational approach is the best approach for creating rights awareness.

In the case of fishermens children its simply building habits of families to prepare their
children for school, and it was possible to do that because the teachers were from the same
village and whenever a child didnt go to school they immediately visited that house to know
why the child is not going to school, and offered their help to tackle the situation that was
preventing the child from going to school.

The teachers became the ambassadors of change whether its in the brickfields of West Bengal,
saltpans of Gujarat or in the coastal villages of Odisha. The most important component of these
educational developmental projects is inspiring the children to expand their horizons and its
been done through the teachers who bring information about different things and present them in
way that children are happy to learn and to come to school.
To change the life cycle of these vulnerable people we need to invest in education, and to
sustain it funding is only needed for teachers salary: to run these CDC thats the only
thing which is required. The other stakeholders the community and the employers
provide the space. The government departments supply some of the books. The teachers
and the students create the study materials and texts according to their need.



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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the Loreto Day School, Sealdah, Kolkata, West Bengal, India the partner
organization for the centers in different parts of India; for providing me with the opportunity to
participate in education facilitating activities among the children of brick field workers of West
Bengal, fisher-people of Odisha and, salt pan / factory workers of Gujarat. I have learned more
from these migrating people and it is they who made me a better person and a better social
worker for some people in need.
Brick Fields: Amalendu Smriti Niketan, Koikala Chetana, Teachers Group, Naihati
Prolife, Towards Future and Progressive Rural Active Youths Action for Society
Saltpans: Swaman Trust
Villages of the Coastal Fisher-People: Orissa Traditional Fish Workers Union and Utkal
Vani Hostel and Cultural Center










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References

Reports generated by my first-hand experience of Project Cycle Management through research,
implementation, monitoring, evaluation and documentation of the corresponding educational
projects at West Bengal, Odisha and Gujarat, as an employee of the Loreto Day School, Sealdah.
Internal reports about the intervention in brickfields, saltpans and villages of the coastal fisher-
people, beside that:

Bandyopadhyay, U. and Baksi, S. (2009). Easy Methods of Teaching Language and
Mathematics. Kolkata: available at Scribd (URL: www.scribd.com).













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Appendixes

1) The methodology used to prepare the study: a three way approach of information collection: -
Individual interviews and FGD (focus group discussion) with children, women and men:
the total sample size is 135 persons (77 children: 47 girls and 30 boys, 33 women and 25
men).
1. In West Bengal 54 persons (32 children: 20 girls and 12 boys, 15 women and 7
men) at the place of migration
2. In Odisha 43 persons (25 children: 15 girls and 10 boys, 10 women and 8 men) at
the place of their origin
3. In Gujarat 38 persons (20 children: 12 girls and 8 boys, 8 women and 10 men) at
the place of migration

Interactions with other stakeholders who are associated with the lives of migrant people
at the destination sites / where they come for work, in West Bengal and Gujarat, and at
the source sites / from where they migrate, in Odisha.

Observations: an anthropological observer approach of information collection: by not
asking direct question and just spending time with them to know about their lives in the
villages, the process of migration and life after migration.


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2) The budget: to start a CDC the expenses is per child less than Rs. 5 00.00 per month. The
usual teacher: student ratio is 1 teacher for 25 students. Thus a CDC in brickfields and saltpans
with 2 teachers for 50 children need Rs. 25,000.00 per month and for 8 months / one season its
Rs. 200,000.00, and it is Rs. 300,000.00 in the villages of the coastal fisher-people, where the
center runs for 12 months.
Rs. 500.00 per child includes expenditure on these budget heads: Study Materials for the
Children, Honorarium of Teachers, Travel Expenses of Teachers for Training,
Administrative Costs and portions of Salaries of Project Coordinator and Accountant.

This amount of Rs. 25,000.00 per month is needed for first 2 / 3 years, and after that the project
can sustain with only the Honorarium of Teachers Rs. 4,000.00 per month for 1 teacher.