Every Child Is Precious

Large sections of children belonging to migrant and casual workers are deprived of education. Such children are always on the move – and in the midst of this mess they often miss out on school. A Pune based activists group named “Every Child Counts” (Every Child is Precious)has been started,to enrol such children into the main stream of education. With this goal in mind the group has set the target of enrolling every six year old child into the school system.

The State of India has granted every child the inalienable right to education. Hence no child can be denied entry into government run schools, based on any financial, social or technical criteria. Under the recently enacted ‘Right to Education’ act the administration has decided to focus only on formal education leaving non-formal education outside its scope. However apart from financial problems, the problems faced by the parents of children participating in non-formal education are many.The government has not proposed any solution to solve their problems,neither has the government provided adequate infrastructure to enrol such students in schools.

In the city of Pune the number of boys and girls who cannot attend school on account of various reasons is staggering. The children of migrant workers, construction workers living in construction site camps, vendors selling on the street corners, workers working in brick kilns, are kept out of the formal schooling system because they need to move base when their parents move.

Obvious to the fact of rising children’s age and the damage caused by lack of education, several organisations and individuals from the city of Pune have decided to take the lead in tackling the problem. An activists group named “Every Child Counts” (Every Child is Precious) has been started. Within this initiative, collecting data about such children has already begun.Indeed every child is precious, every child has the right to education; this initiative has been started with these stated goals.

Coming this June, the initiative will not stop at merely enrolling children in government school, but will take stock of children’s attendance, determine and asses the deterrents and problems and make relevant suggestions and solutions to the administration, which also happens to be one of the goals of this initiative.

The structure of this initiative is set up as a citizen’s campaign; where in every citizen as a part of this campaign will find such children in his or her neighbourhood and help them get admitted to schools. The involved activists are collating all relevant technical details, administrative procedures required for school admissions, and the experiences gathered so far, so that it reaches as many citizens as possible. Complete information regarding this campaign is available at http://everychildcounts-pune.blogspot.com.

- Satish Joglekar