Out of our population of around 15 crore, nearly 4 crore 24 lakh are children aged 5-17 years. 74 lakh of these children are engaged in earning their own living, out of which 15 lakh are working in urban areas. Of the types of work they are engaged in, many are hazardous, though Bangladesh has ratified both the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990 and the Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour in 2001. A large number of the working children are engaged as domestic help, of whom three-fourths are girls. They work long hours for 7 days a week. Most of these working children have never attended school.
The government has vowed to take all children to school by 2011, which is unlikely to happen considering the lack of initiatives that ay have been taken thus far. However, it is a tradition in our politics to make a promise in order to break it. The two initiatives that the government has taken in order to bring all children to school are the ROSC (Reaching Out Of School Children) Project and the BEHTRUWC (Basic Education for Hard to Reach Urban Working Children) Project. The latter has been launched by the Bureau of Non Formal Education (NFE) for 2006- 2011 with support from UNICEF, Canadian CIDA and Swedish SIDA. The objective is to provide 120,000 urban working girls and 80,000 urban working boys aged 10-14 years with 40 months long basic education course. This project is now in 6 City Corporations run by 20 national NGOs with 6,664 teachers through 6,646 learning centers.
Whether the future of this project is rosy or grey should be found out through a journalistic investigation that probes both its top and ground levels. Here we can get glimpses of it from the words of some learners from the learning centers in Dhaka. They were gathered at the Bureau of Non Formal Education on 11 June in order to observe the World Day Against Child Labour 2009, which is observed every year on June 12. About 40 children who were selected on the criteria of being more advanced in terms of their maturiy and vocal than others took part in a sharing session with officials from Hard-to-Reach, NFE (Bureau of Non Formal Education) and UNICEF.
Most were happy to see a glimpse of hope in their lives through this project. At the same time many voiced their disappointment and demanded something more and better. Shahnaz Akter (13) said, 'We come to a learning centre from a long distance. Now, it will be helpful if each of us is given a school bag. Again, it takes a major share of our study time to sharpen the pencils that are given to us. We thought that our teachers did not want to give us the quality things. Now I see it is you who are at fault for not providing us with quality education materials. So please give us school bags and quality pencils, which will help us to attain good education.'
Another boy said they did not want airplanes, but would like to have at-least some food at school. Hard-to-Reach provides education up to Class V. But these children want to study more. There are problems that the mainstream schools do not want to accept them when they complete their cycles at Hard-to-Reach schools. Najma Akter (13) said that students of other schools consider them inferior and do not treat them well. Selina (14) said, 'You have made schools only for primary education for us, why not schools for higher grades and colleges too? Quality of these schools should be improved so that children become interested in coming here.'
Some children said that birth registration is a right of every child which many are deprived of; many voiced their concern about child marriage that brings hope for education to an abrupt end. One girl said that education is a right of every child in the country and voiced her concern, 'Are other working children of the country getting a chance to go to school?' All know that the answer is outright negative and may remain so for many years to come. There might be some light glittering, however faintly, at the end of the tunnel in the words of such a child, 'Those of us who are good at reading and writing can teach other working children and thus help spread education across the country.'
It would have been better if elders also had learnt from them. The coming education policy will do enormous good by taking into account the concerns of the working children all over the country.
The government has vowed to take all children to school by 2011, which is unlikely to happen considering the lack of initiatives that ay have been taken thus far. However, it is a tradition in our politics to make a promise in order to break it. The two initiatives that the government has taken in order to bring all children to school are the ROSC (Reaching Out Of School Children) Project and the BEHTRUWC (Basic Education for Hard to Reach Urban Working Children) Project. The latter has been launched by the Bureau of Non Formal Education (NFE) for 2006- 2011 with support from UNICEF, Canadian CIDA and Swedish SIDA. The objective is to provide 120,000 urban working girls and 80,000 urban working boys aged 10-14 years with 40 months long basic education course. This project is now in 6 City Corporations run by 20 national NGOs with 6,664 teachers through 6,646 learning centers.
Whether the future of this project is rosy or grey should be found out through a journalistic investigation that probes both its top and ground levels. Here we can get glimpses of it from the words of some learners from the learning centers in Dhaka. They were gathered at the Bureau of Non Formal Education on 11 June in order to observe the World Day Against Child Labour 2009, which is observed every year on June 12. About 40 children who were selected on the criteria of being more advanced in terms of their maturiy and vocal than others took part in a sharing session with officials from Hard-to-Reach, NFE (Bureau of Non Formal Education) and UNICEF.
Most were happy to see a glimpse of hope in their lives through this project. At the same time many voiced their disappointment and demanded something more and better. Shahnaz Akter (13) said, 'We come to a learning centre from a long distance. Now, it will be helpful if each of us is given a school bag. Again, it takes a major share of our study time to sharpen the pencils that are given to us. We thought that our teachers did not want to give us the quality things. Now I see it is you who are at fault for not providing us with quality education materials. So please give us school bags and quality pencils, which will help us to attain good education.'
Another boy said they did not want airplanes, but would like to have at-least some food at school. Hard-to-Reach provides education up to Class V. But these children want to study more. There are problems that the mainstream schools do not want to accept them when they complete their cycles at Hard-to-Reach schools. Najma Akter (13) said that students of other schools consider them inferior and do not treat them well. Selina (14) said, 'You have made schools only for primary education for us, why not schools for higher grades and colleges too? Quality of these schools should be improved so that children become interested in coming here.'
Some children said that birth registration is a right of every child which many are deprived of; many voiced their concern about child marriage that brings hope for education to an abrupt end. One girl said that education is a right of every child in the country and voiced her concern, 'Are other working children of the country getting a chance to go to school?' All know that the answer is outright negative and may remain so for many years to come. There might be some light glittering, however faintly, at the end of the tunnel in the words of such a child, 'Those of us who are good at reading and writing can teach other working children and thus help spread education across the country.'
It would have been better if elders also had learnt from them. The coming education policy will do enormous good by taking into account the concerns of the working children all over the country.
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