Education for Underprivileged

Children

•By the government estimate, out of 200 million children in the age group of 6 to 14 in India, around 59 million do not attend school. Of the rest, who are currently in school, 4 out of every 10 children beginning to attend school will drop out before completing their primary school education.

• . When a child is born in the house of a poor person he is taken as an addition to the number of earners. He is rarely sent to school and mainly made to learn the tactics of the father’s vocation so that he can also start earning. Without the necessary education, children are far more likely to be poor when they are adults, creating a vicious cycle of poverty.

Among the world’s 10 richest people, four are Indians. On the

other side, 17 million Indian children work as labourers.

• Poor children see times where fingers gifted for holding a

pencil or a crayon are smeared with sand and mud to relieve their hungry stomachs, the

back is burdened with load of their younger brother or sister instead of their school bags. Ironically, they are part of

constructing school buildings and they never get a chance to study in them. Since the worth of education is not known to the parents, the

children are not sent to school and are sent to work by

compulsion and not by choice, mostly by parents or are made to stay back,which gives them a sense of insecurity . What if we can educate these children on the parents working sites

itself?• Thus we introduce a new

literacy programme..

•“EDUCATION KNOCKS-shiksha ki dastak•where education comes knocking at your door”

Main idea of Education Knocks• Imparting education to children of labour

should be incorporated as essential part of any contract whether for construction or for allowing any industry, power projects, University etc. because these projects do take a minimum of five to six years for completion and if it possible to educate these children at their parents working sites, at least 90%of the children can get basic primary education and a better understanding.In the agreements and contracts a list of all the total number of workers and their children should be submitted along with a consent letter by a local society, NGO’s and volunteers, who are willing to take up “education knocks” literacy programmed.

THE NEED FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF EDUCATION KNOCKS IS..

• Education going to the doorstep.• Less infrastructure.• No regular employees.• Flexible timings.• Making education available on humanitarian grounds.

INNOVATIVE METHODS OF IMPARTING EDUCATION

• Lucrative, interesting and entertaining classes with basic teaching of computers.

• Audio visual teaching aids to show educative movies and programmes, talk shows.

• Syllabus books, vocational training books and mobile library.• Atleast two sets of uniforms should be provided so that the

children have proper clothes to wear.• A nutritious meal or some snacks to improve malnutrition.• Bi-weekly, monthly and annual examinations with awards.• Small educative tours for better exposure of the world.

Ways to make the program attractive

• Incentives should be given to families where all the children are educated.

• Increments to the labourers should be based on their zeal and effort shown by them to provide education.

• Classification of contractors in categories should also be based on the number of children of labour class being educated by them during the tenure of the contract.

• Minimum ISO (international Organization for Standardization) standards should be set for any industry and construction companies to encourage them to take up education knocks literacy programme.

WAYS AND MEANS OF RAISING FINANCE

• “Education knocks” should be run parallel to sarva shiksha abhiyan by the government itself. Equal amounts of funds should be provided keeping the importance of right to education for all. Regulatory authorities and ombudsman should be appointed by the government for regulating and keeping a check on running of this project. Contractors industries and construction companies should keep at least 5% of the completion amount or gross income of the industries for this literacy programme. Rest of the needed funds should be provided by the government out of the education cess that is collected. While setting of the budget the uniforms, books, salaries of the teachers, daily snacks and stationery should be kept in mind.

ITEM OF EXPANDITURE COST PER ANNUM

TEACHING STAFF 3,00,000

BOOKS (500 per student) 25,000

STATIONERY(200 per student, per month) 60,000

UNIFORM (1200 per student for 2 pairs) 60,000

SNACKS(50 per day) 30,000

APPROXIMATE BUDGET FOR “EDUCATION KNOCKS” LITERACY PROGRAMMME

(Considering 50 students under one contractor)

The total annual budget sums up to approximately 6Lakhs.

Even a small building takes minimum 5 years for construction, thus total cost= 30Lakhs.

If the total cost of construction is 6crore,this project shall take only 5% of it.

The money collected from the education cess ,the aids by the state and central government ,and world bank. Should be utilized for forming :-

•Mobile library (including toys for small children) costing approximately 50,000

•Audio visual teaching aids costing approximately 2,50,000.

* THIS BUDGET IS TAKEN WITH APPROXIMATE MINIMUM VALUES.