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Fifty-three extension schools in Karnataka have brought education to 5,000 working children.
In Basrur, a tribal farming village in Karnataka, the children have a habit of staying out after 8 pm, but no parents are complaining. These children, who spend all day working in the fields, head out to school at night. This night school is packed at all times, even at harvest time. Education here is based on the premise that working children value the chance to learn. It is the education system that has not valued children who work. The Basrur school was started by Damodaran Acharya. Acharya came from Kundapur in South Kannara where, despite 70 per cent literacy, over 200,000 children dropped out of school every year. The children would listen to their parents and other elders discussing workers&#! 8217; rights and demands. Soon they were asking -- what about our rights? In a place where there were more than 300,000 working children, their voices had to be heard. In 1980, Acharya set up Concerned for Working Children (CWC), which organised 300 working children around Bangalore and analysed their working and living conditions. Then they submitted a Children's Bill to the state government. The Bill was passed in 1986. It recognised child labour as a national concern but did little in concrete terms. In 1989, CWC launched Ankur, a programme that tried to understand why rural children migrate to urban centres. Acharya was convinced that economics alone does not interfere with children's education. He started by organising 13,000 children into the Bhima Sangha (Working Children's Union), Makkalla Panchayat (Working Children's Panchayat) and Namma Sangha (Young Adult! s' Artisan Guilds). These organisations enable the children to participate in the "politics and processes of their lives". A Toofan (Whirlwind) Task Force has also been set up, comprising both children and adults, to look into matters of development and to implement solutions. As children started vociferously asking for their due, they began to get results. The school in Basrur is one among 53 'dream schools' or 'extension schools' spread over 80 villages, which the children have demanded through the Gram Panchayats. In April 1995, the initial workshop for 'appropriate' education included -- apart from schoolteachers, social workers and other officials -- 50 working children from rural areas. These children belonged to different castes and tribes, some dropouts from school and some who had never been to school. They were able to offer their ideas about what kind o! f education would be relevant for them; they were keen to run their schools themselves. "I joined the Bhim Sangha because I wanted to study, understand my life as a worker, and learn enough to manage myself independently," says Bassama, president of the village children's council. The debate on child labour in India has resulted in various bans and an embargo on various products. But these bans don't stop children from working, as Acharya points out. To educate them is to enable them to chart out their own course in the future. These extension schools have brought education to over 5,000 working children. Contact: Damodar Acharya
The Concerned for Working Children
Gramshrama, 437/3, L.B. Shastri Nagar
&n! bsp; Vimanapura Post, Bangalore
Karnataka 560017, India
Tel. 91-80-523 4270/ 272 / 269
Email:
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