PROMOTING THE CHILD'S RIGHT TO A REAL CHILDHOOD

(Protecting Child Rights - Role of Schools)

By Shantha Sinha, Executive Director, M. Venkatarangaiya Foundation

Presented at the 2003 Magsaysay Awardees' Lecture Series

Magsaysay Center, Manila, 29 August 2003

Hundreds of millions of children in the third world do not go to schools. Being out of schools, they are subject to untold misery through working at farms and in the factories; on quarries and mines and in sweat shops; hidden at homes in the confines of shackles, fetching water, fuel wood and carrying siblings; as street children, rag pickers and in workshops. They live lives of drudgery, surviving against all odds uncared for, unprotected and unnoticed--day in and day out in a timeless zone. Their lives are filled with fears and anxieties that get unwittingly transferred to them from their parents. Children are prepared to accept their lot without realising their fullest potential.

There is a lack of societal norm or an expression of shock or outrage that children are in work and not in and being denied their childhood. Tolerance of child labour is explicit in all arguments, beginning with the position that poor families depend on children for their livelihood and therefore if children did not work it would become impossible to survive. How can families manage without the income earned by the children? This question is repeatedly asked by almost every section in the society and also in policy making bodies operating at the local, national and global levels dealing with protection of children and child rights. Likewise it is asked 'what will happen to the mothers if girls did not carry siblings and took care of the home and shared the burden of work in the household'. It is therefore suggested that arrangements must be made where children can work and also learn at the same time and thus prevent the families from collapsing. (A kind of a win- win situation where both children and their families would benefit).

Elaboration of such a view are the questions raised, such as "why must poor children go to schools- are they not better off acquiring skills while at work? Schools are so bad and the quality of education is so poor, is it not a waste of time that children go to schools?" or that "Education in schools, the syllabus and curriculum are irrelevant--they do not equip children to become workers". In fact, it is also stated that being in schools would only alienate children from their surroundings and render them useless to the community that they belong to. Would they not be better off if they had a learning process that reintegrates them into their society and culture. Also, they must actually be given vocational skills for otherwise they would 'neither be here nor there'. The more enlightened among the critiques of poor children's necessity to be in schools and enjoy their right to education say "what is wrong in working, even I worked and helped my family; I was a child labour myself!" In a way such arguments imply that children need to continue to work until such time solutions are found to resolve all these issues.

In the international fora even those countries who several decades ago made the transition have often adopted an 'understanding' approach. As a result they have often endorsed less uncompromising views on issues of child rights than those prevailing in their own countries. Improvement of quality of schools and elimination of poverty are viewed as a pre-condition not only for universalising education but also for eliminating child labour. Consequently it is on these factors that the emphasis is laid.

These values and attitudes seep through all layers of society with such ease that they are internalized by the parents themselves. Being vulnerable and weak, when they are confronted with the question of why they continue to send their children to work, they come up with predictable responses that reflect the attitudes and values prevalent in the society. Thus a poor parent's decision to send their children to schools is predicated by an atmosphere that repeatedly states that they are too ambitious and impractical in intending to do so.

Given the low level of expectations about the poor parents and their capacities, it is seldom acknowledged that in defiance of conventional wisdom several hundreds and thousands of poor parents continue to obstinately send their children to schools. They have reposed faith in schools and persisted in sending them in spite of poverty, making enormous sacrifices in the process. There are examples of innumerable numbers of poor children who have continued in schools even if schools were inadequate both in terms of infrastructure and sensitivity. Poor parents too were unable to justify why they encouraged children to study mainly because they were not expected to do so in any case. If stretched to give a reasoned out argument, they even conceded that being poor, they should actually have sent their children to work, as if they were wrong in sending their children to schools. The inability to provide suitable reasons for what causes child labour in the acceptable framework or knowledge systems negated the fact that children even from among the poorest families were actually going to schools. In such an environment, convincing informed sceptics and other societal actors about the inviolability of children's right to education would thus be the single most difficult task in withdrawing children from work and in witnessing them enjoy their right to education.

Being in Schools -- A Struggle against Odds

Given such a set of social norms, poor parents cannot take education of their children for granted, and have to offer explanations for doing what is otherwise considered as normal. In contrast, families of literates send their children to schools without having to defend their act. All constraints in accessing education through formal schools emanate from this double standard, where there is one set of values for the poor and another for all others on the issue of education. The universality of the right to education is compromised systematically at local, national and international fora. This in turn has a consequence for the manner in which schools function especially in case of the poor.

In an environment where children and their right to education is considered as unachievable it has consequences to the manner in which schools function. It reflects in its indifference to the learning of children : subjecting them to insults, corporal punishment, emotional stress and violation of their rights as children. It makes their sustenance in school an every day struggle wherein the continuance of children in school until they finish the elementary or eighth grade would be a sheer accident. In the case of the girl child, her survival in school is even more precarious. All the obstacles are magnified to a large extent since the social atmosphere condones her being illiterate in any case. Therefore, there is no pressure on them to cater to every child in the society and to keep children away from the labour market.

Given the half-heartedness about the poor and their ability to send their children to schools, often even the most benign of rules and regulations appear deviously intractable and seem to have been formulated with the sole purpose of preventing any child from joining or continuing in school. Poor parents in the Indian context are thus easily intimidated if they have to deal with schools, which they are unfamiliar with. For example they lack the skill to get birth certificates, medical certificates, income and caste certificates, which need dealing with more than one government department. They are much less familiar with the rules of examination, attendance, promotion, procurement of transfer certificates and so on. Since the poor parents are not equipped culturally to handle schools and the formal and informal systems of school management that have evolved over a period of time seem intricate and 'absurd' to them. On the other hand they feel more at ease dealing with the employer, as they are familiar with all the rules of the transaction and know exactly what to do. Thus while all the rigid procedures that govern school-going are understood without any difficulty by parents of children coming from families with a long history of sending children to school, illiterate parents who are attempting to become parents of a first generation literate simply do not know what has to be done. In other words the school governance system is tacitly designed to fulfil the needs of those families who send their children to schools as a matter of habit and are fully aware of what to anticipate at every step from their children as well as the schools.

Building a Social Norm -- M. V. Foundation's Experience

In order to make the schools responsive to the needs of the first generation learner there must be social and cultural environment that is intolerant to child labour and thereby give respect to children as individuals in their own right to be compounded with a firm belief that it is necessary and possible for every child to be in schools. In the absence of an uncompromising stand on the abolition of child labour, the focus is on can this be done rather than how this should be done. It is this distinction that needs to be clearly drawn. As long as the question of can this be done is the only one that is being addressed no real solution will emerge. The entire effort tends to get focused on understanding why we are where we are. This implies an analysis of parents who send their children to work, rather than how we get to where we need to be. It is necessary to understand of how parents have learnt to cope with their limitations and are now sending their children to school. One cannot wish away these as mere exceptions because they are a significant and rising number. In M. V. Foundation's experience it has been seen that cutting across regions, cultures, ethnic groups, livelihood patterns, political regimes it must be recognised that there is a crying demand for education and parents are willing to make enormous sacrifices to send their children to schools.

Building a social norm in support of poor children's right to education would mean the transformation of a web of relations and interactions among different social groups at all levels, from the local to the global. The simple act of children being withdrawn from work through a conscious strategy based on the ethical position that all children must attend full time formal schools imperceptibly disturbs the existing social and economic arrangements. When a child is sent to school, adjustments are made within the family and in the production processes. New coalitions in favour of protection of child rights are built redefining the basis of interactions among social groups in the village and also the roles of elected representatives of local bodies. Indeed this heralds changes in the school governance system and also in the processes of teaching and learning within the classroom. The processes of democratisation of schools begin.

The programme of MV Foundation currently in the eight districts of Andhra Pradesh, India in over 4000 villages, reaching out to 650,000 children is based on the conviction that 'no child must work-and that every child must attend full time formal schools'. Gaining strength from all those poor children who against odds accessed schools, MV Foundation recognized that building a social norm in favour of children's right to education alone would help in making it possible for children to be in schools. This meant that if 240,000 children over the last decade have been emancipated from work and sent to schools, as many plans were meticulously drawn, just as many parents were given confidence, and some hundreds of thousands of conflicts were resolved.

Resistance from employers of bonded labour children, girls who worked for fewer wages on farms, children in quarries and brick kilns were thus dealt with astutely by youth volunteers with tolerance and magnanimity, converting every provocation into a challenge, and an occasion to build consensus on the issue of protection of children's rights. Counter to violence, insults and abuse was through intense debates and discussions and in winning over even the most difficult of them as partners in the campaign for protection of child rights.

These youth activists were the first generation literate who needed no convincing since they knew the difference it made to children in being in school and not at work. At the same time they were never in doubt about poor parents wanting to send their children to schools. Parents too responded to the tenacity of the youth activists working on the issue who relentlessly pursued them. It is rare that they are treated with respect and spoken to as equals. Indeed it was during the motivation drives that an innate desire of many parents for sending their children to schools became explicit. Parents were given assurance that they were right in desiring that their children even if they are now older need to go to school and that their decision to send their children to schools was fair to the child and acceptable to all. They were also given confidence that through bridge course camps their children would be prepared for studentship and that once in formal schools every effort would be made to demand that their children would be given all the care and attention. Parents were also provoked to think about their own deprivations since they had never been to schools. Encouraged by the mood thus created, parents gradually opted to withdraw their children from work. They made adjustments in work practices of their daily lives. Of course some of them took a longer time, a couple of months and even years, to take the crucial decision to get used to the idea of being without their children's work. The youth activists went back and forth to the homes of these children. The strength to persist came from the children themselves who were in fact waiting to be seen and heard.

These activists became the anchors of the entire programme facing the wrath and anger of employers, stubbornness of parents, and unaccountable school system in an environment that is unsympathetic to children. Yet they orchestrated their activities unmindful of the odds and with patience and ingenuity bringing the entire village society to voice the rights of children. A consummation of such individual decisions enabled a change in the social norms. Breaking existing social norms and also daily life patterns is slow and time consuming but not impossible.

The atmosphere acted as a pressure on schools, and schoolteachers took an active part in the programme. In the process of their participation in the campaign to bring every child to school, they began to discover their role as custodians of child rights. They no longer confined themselves to teaching only such children who came to school regularly but sought to reach out to all. Even the recalcitrant teacher relented to social pressure and started to gain respect from the community even as s/he discovered the teacher in him/her only in the process of addressing the issue of child rights.

Schools as Radical Institutions

While it is agreed that schools are meant to provide education for children the entire effort has resulted in enlarging its scope in the context of protection of child rights. Schools gave children a chance to embark on a journey towards attainment of equality. Stated differently, schools became institutions that break the intergenerational cycle of poverty and deprivation. In fact even during the process of children gaining access to schools, the families of the poor witnessed a change in their lifestyle and mode of thinking and these families ceased to reproduce the same values and culture, which kept them marginalized.

Since they worked hard and made adjustments in their daily routines, along with enormous sacrifices to ensure that children get their right to education parents gained a moral authority to question the quality of provisioning of education. They put paid to the debate once and for all that parents are indifferent to their children's educational needs. They began to assert and question with greater confidence and take informed decisions. Schools thus became the first step towards access to cultural capital. By recognizing that education is a way of getting access to cultural accoutrements the poor started to participate in the longer process of democratizing schools. In the process schools became sites for contestation of power.

Democratisation for Protection of Child Rights

The support for children and their rights institutionalised with the formation of local institutions such as the Child Rights Protection Committees. With the setting up of the committees every section in the village was alerted that violating the rights of a child would not be tolerated. In fact they acted as watchdogs, making the incidents of bonded labour or girl child abuses becoming visible. More and more information became available about children, their tribulations and struggles, the situation of bonded labour, and in the case of girls, their engagements, proposed marriages, violence on older girl children and their dropping out of school. At the same time, parents and village institutions began to frequently discuss the problem. The committees helped in the community internalising the idea that children need to go to schools.

The committees also bridged the gap that existed between the household and the local bodies mediating through existing social and cultural hierarchies, reminding them about their responsibilities in protection of child rights and compelling them to act, thus marking a beginning of a genuine democratic process. It is in the process of participation in the protection of child rights that every single member of the local body began enjoying the status of an elected representative projecting public interest at the gram panchayat. The ward members who had little or no role in the functioning of the local body began to formulate policies interacting with the forums and committees set up in the village.

The gram panchayats got activised to take up issues of child rights. There was no doubt that children's rights were deeply contentious issues, and yet had to be resolved without any compromise. It is in this context that the dynamics between the local committees and gram panchayats obtained significance. The members of the committees utilized the platform transcending their immediate interests to take up an agenda having a universal appeal. They began to debate, discuss and review the status of children's rights in their interaction with the gram panchayats, and brought pressure on them. It is in the process of integration of child rights issues with the local bodies that the strength of democracy was discovered and even enjoyed. Such a process not only protected children's rights but also introduced traditions for democratic decision-making.

Further the process of accessing schools by the poor in a self-conscious manner; disturbed the departments own functioning, its logic and hierarchical structure, leading to a redefinition of the roles of the functionaries in the government. In a way the process of democratisation of schools began to inform changes in policy as well as administrative functions of different layers of the government. The sequence of this information did not necessarily follow a bottom to top approach. The flow of information sometimes bypassed the intermediary layers making an impact on the state level policy-making apparatus first. In course of time clarity in the respective roles of all levels in bureaucracy and among political institutions on the functions regarding children's rights began to emerge in order to meet the demands made by the community at the village level.

Our experience has therefore shown that restoring the right of every child to education is not a simple act. Building a social norm in favour of protection of children's rights, especially their right to education has ramifications for the society as a whole. Children are freed of the burden of work and enjoy their childhood; parents are no longer parents of workers but are parents of students taking pride in the achievement of children, discovering the joys of parenthood. In fact, through the child in school the parents begin to deal with contemporary institutions with greater confidence. The numerous acts of parents and children by stubbornly remaining in schools constitute a struggle over distribution of resources-both economic and cultural.

When members of the community begin to participate in a programme for the rights of the child they transcend all their parochial identities to take up universal agendas. New alliances are built on rights-based issues cutting across other traditional differences. There emerges a culture of taking uncompromising stands on issues and methods to resolve conflicts through debates and discussions are worked out. This lays the foundations for a new democratic society.

When teachers address the rights of every child in the society without any compromise they are empowered to teach. They begin to enjoy the dignity and respect that the community now bestows on them. In the process schools become radical institutions that protect child rights. Being out of schools, children are invisible without any public knowledge of the hardships they face in their daily lives. They are hidden in private spaces, totally inaccessible under circumstances of gross violation of child rights and loss of childhood. On the other hand once in schools children are in the reckoning and begin to enjoy all the rights that are due to them. Schools became public places available for public scrutiny making it possible to address all other rights of children such as the right to health, right to nutrition, right to protection and development. There cannot be a greater justification for why children must go to schools. This can only achieved when there is a norm in society that does not allow children to work and says that every child, no matter how poor, MUST go to school.