This piece was carried in Tehelka on 23rd January 2013.

Web link: http://tehelka.com/born-to-be-bonded/

Born to be bonded?

Dearth of work is forcing lakhs of families to seasonally migrate to other states in search of their livelihood. Here their children are forced to work as bonded labourers in the brick kilns, depriving them of their childhood, while the administration turns a blind eye

Photo by Pradeep Baisakh: Kamalini helps her mother in household work as younger sister Soudamini looks on

Poverty entails sacrifice. When resource availability is scarce, one has to sacrifice for others. Poor migrant labourers from the remote villages of Odisha face this predicament daily.

Kamalini Bangula, 18 dropped out of school just after she passed class 5. Marginal farmers Tapi and Tulusa Bangula, parents of Kamalini and two more children, could hardly provide two square meals to the whole family, forcing them to migrate out of the state to Hyderabad, Tirupati, Visakhapatnam and other places to work in brick kilns. Ten years back, when the family first migrated, Kamalini had no choice but to stay with her family to help with brick making. Her sacrifice however did not go in vain. Now she is paying for her younger sibling’s education, who study in class ten and three, out of her income. When the family moves out, these children would stay with their uncle (elder brother of Tapi) to continuing schooling. “Let my sister’s dream of becoming a teacher come true!” says Kamalini wishing all the success to her younger sister. This time they have taken 35,000 rupees from a middleman to work in a brick kiln in the Cuttack district of Odisha.

Hundreds of thousands of families from drought prone western part of the state seasonally migrate to other states in search of work, through a well entrenched and exploitative middlemen system, characterised by hefty advance payment and tacit bondage of labour. Dearth of work in villages forces them out. Child labour is implicit in brick kiln industries where most of these families work. This is how Urban India, that demands more bricks for its real estate boom, thrives at the cost of poor children from rural areas. Laws to ban child labour in hazardous industries and to ensure primary education to children between 6-14 years have hardly produced the desired impact. Child labour continues unabated. A study by International Labour Organisation (ILO) conducted with Aide Et Action India (AEAI) in 2011-12 in Balangir, Nuapada and Kalahandi districts of Odisha, finds that as many as 11 percent of the total migrants are children in the age group of 6-14, whose education has been guaranteed by the Right to Education Law, 2009. Estimates from various sources put the number of migrant workers at around 2.5 to 3 hundred thousand from the western Odisha districts alone, about 85 percent of whom migrate to other states (Source: ILO study, 2011-12). So the number of children in this age group could well be between 25,000 to 30,000. Has the state done enough to protect their right to education?

Initiatives have been taken jointly by the government and the civil societies to work out two models for the education of migrant children. One is to open seasonal hostels in the villages to house the children of migrating families when their parents are away and the other is to run work-site schools in the host states and teach children in their native language. The latter entails a strong inter-state arrangement where Odia teachers and text books are to be sent to Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, the states with the maximum influx of migrant Odia labourers. Although last year was a disaster for the state in opening such hostels, for the year 2012-13 it has allocated funds for retaining 5389 students. During my recent tour of the villages in Belpada block of Balangir district, I found some of the hostels doing reasonably well. But in many cases the hostels have simply not come though and several children have migrated from their villages. While in some cases they were opened quite late after several families had already migrated. Babejori village of Gudhighat panchayat under Muribahal block is a case in point. November to January is the peak season of migration. Hostels should have opened by the first week of November to retain children of migrant workers.

On the other hand, Andhra Pradesh, which has taken a giant leap in providing education to the migrant children, claims that it taught 6453 Odia migrant children in the year 2011-12. However due to a lack of proper coordination between the education departments of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, the children could not get adequate Odia text books, although Odia teachers were made available. Sridhar Mether of Aide Et Action India, the NGO that partnered with the AP government in teaching migrant children says “We need to have different type of curriculum, which is more activity based, to keep the children involved.” The training of the migrant teachers and the quality of education remain a grey area. A willing Commissioner-cum-Secretary of Mass Education Department of Government of Odisha Ms Usha Padhee says “I understand that current inter-state arrangement to provide education to the Odia migrant children in other states is adhoc. We have made arrangements this time for timely delivery of text books in Andhra, Tamil Nadu and other states. They are our children. We are seriously pondering on having long term plans to ensure basic education of migrant children.”

Performance of the much hyped Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme (MGNREGA) in these districts, aimed to check distress migration, can well be an example of how a well designed law can get off-track when it is implemented, if the politicians and bureaucrats lack the will. During the current financial year (April 2012 to January 2013), in Balangir district an average of 28 days of work has been provided to 61,500 families, which is one fourth of the total families having Job Cards in the district. In Nuapada district, 30 days of work has been provided to 27,600 families, which is one fourth of the total Job card holders. In financial terms, the families have got about 3600 rupees as wages under MGNREGA. The government expects to check the migration of these families by providing them with such paltry wages and that too with exorbitant delay in payment. On the other hand middlemen offer a sum of 35,000 rupees at a time to a single family before migration. Recently the state government has decided to provide 150 days of work under MGNREGA against the minimum limit of 100 days in these two districts. One wonders what difference it would make to the schemes performance. “Till the basic issues of providing employment in time of need and timely payment remain unaddressed, only increasing the number of days will not curb distressed migration” opines Rajkishor Mishra, the Odisha Advisor to Right to Food Commission of Supreme Court.

Brick kilns in the country are one of the biggest employers of child labour apart from cotton geneing, carpet industries, jari work, diamond polishing etc. Even though they are being educated, the children continue to work in the kilns at night. The labour department officials in AP remain tight-lipped on the issue of child labour in brick kilns. Umi Daniel, who has done pioneering work on the education of migrant children, says “One way to prevent child labour is to check the children at the source area. Strict enforcement of the anti-child labour laws in the worksites is a must to stop the menace.”

The author is a media fellow of National Foundation of India (NFI), New Delhi for the year 2012.

Childhood Burnt in Brick Kilns

This piece came in 'Political and Business Daily' on 11th November 2012

Childhood Burnt in Brick Kilns

Pradeep Baisakh

A mapping exercise undertaken in 2011-12 by Aide Et Action International (AEAI) and UNICEF in Bhubaneswar, Rourkera and Berhampur cities in house construction, stone crusher and brick kiln sectors found that as many as 84 percent children of school going age do not avail any school facility at the work place. Survey was conducted in 2011-12 in 423 worksites covering 4064 migrant families which captured 9107 children (0 to less than 18 years) in these worksites.

Prem Sai Barik, the son of Pramod Barik and Baijayanti Barik, was studying in class three in his village school in Surekela of Belpada block of Balangir district of Odisha when he migrated to Bhubaneswar, the state capital with parents in September 2011. His parents migrated in search of alternate employment owing to crop loss in village last year. He packed up his books in anticipation of joining a new school in Bhubaneswar. But his hopes were dashed against the walls of a brick kiln, which was miles away from the school.

Growing urbanization and fast expanding infrastructures in the cities of Odisha have drawn huge number unskilled and semi-skilled labourers from the rural pockets inside and outside the state. Labourers are in high demand in building construction, laying highways, digging drainage system, stone crushers, brick making, loading and unloading work so on and so forth.  While in some case single youth migrate to cities to work, in many case families come with their children to work. Some come and stay in the worksites for a longer period while others come for a shorter period or seasonally. Some sectors like brick kilns are season specific which operate for about eight months in a year. The units close their production in rainy days.

Most of the labourers come though the system of middlemen. They are promised of basic minimum amenities at the worksites, which they hardly get. The employers do not show adequate interest for investing on basic amenities and other labour welfare except probably the wages and scanty medical facilities. The children along with their parents adjust themselves in small temporary dwelling units located near the workplaces. The children who come with the parents normally help them in work as they hardly could avail any facility for education near the worksites.

A mapping exercise undertaken in 2011-12 by Aide Et Action International (AEAI) and UNICEF in Bhubaneswar, Rourkera and Berhampur cities in house construction, stone crusher and brick kiln sectors found that as many as 84 percent children of school going age do not avail any school facility at the work place. Survey was conducted in 2011-12 in 423 worksites covering 4064 migrant families which captured 9107 children (0 to less than 18 years) in these worksites. The percentage of children found is 51 percent of the total migrating population covered under the survey. Of the total children, 51 percent are male and 49 percent are female. Of these children, 47 percent come under the age group of 6-14, who are constitutionally entitled to free primary education under the newly enacted Right to Education law that came into force in August 2009.

The study suggests that as many as 41 percent of these children do not attend school in their villages itself! This fact is quite startling as children miss schools even when the same is available. Further study of this phenomenon suggest that many migrating parents do not find it easy to get their children attending schools in their villages as they stay out for a very long period. In brick kiln sector, the families stay in a particular work place from September/October to next year May/June. Rest time they generally stay in their own villages. This is typically seasonal. In construction sector, the families keep roaming from site to site. Once work is over in a particular building or road construction, the same or other contractor takes them to another site. This work goes on almost through out the year. And in stone crushers also work goes on through out the year. Labourers working in construction and stone crushers go to their native during festivals; otherwise they keep migrating from place to place in same or different cities and adapt to the local ambience. Advance payment is given to the families in brick kiln sector where money is taken also for the work of the children who are involved in molding and drying and carrying the bricks. Children above five years work in brick kiln sector. Advance payment system is generally absent in construction and stone crushers barring a few cases. Children above eleven years work in these sectors. In construction sector children carry the bricks and cement and in crushers they break stones.

In only few cases the migrant children are enrolled in the schools at worksites. Near Tapang area in Khurda district, some children who work in stone crushers are studying in the nearby NCLP (National Child Labour Project) schools. While the children of parent working in brick kilns in Balianta and Pipili areas near Bhubaneswar study in the nearby schools. But in all the cases the parents are staying in the area for more that two or three years.

There is not enough motivation for parents to educate their children as they do not see any immediate benefits from it. Even if they are admitted into the school system and continue attending the schools while in the village, the absence of the same facilities at the worksite deprive them of education for more than eight months a year for the children in brick kilns. For other sectors, they could hardly get to read while on wheels. Prioritisation of children’s education seems quite meaningless for them. Ratikant Behera, the researcher at AEAI says “I interacted with some children who were never enrolled into schools. When I asked why they are not going to schools, they just said that they are not interested.” This also shows that the children who are putting hard labour along with parents in the work places hardly draw any solace in taking extra burden of going to schools. Child labour therefore remains as of one of the major reasons for deprivation of children from education.

Sashank Kumar Padhi of ‘Save the Children’ that works on children’s education says “The onus is on the state government to fulfill the constitutional mandate protecting educational rights of the migrant children. A convergence of different line departments like education, labour and Panchaytiraj is pre-requisite for this to happen.”

Krishna Gopal Mohapatra, the Special Project Director (SPD) to Sarva Sikshya Aviyan (SSA), says “we are taking a series of measures to ensure education of migrant children coming from within the state.” SSA Odisha has issued orders to the District Project Coordinators (DPC) to identify the migrant children in different worksites who are eligible for primary education and link them to the nearby schools. It has also directed to the major source districts like Ganjam, Nuapada, Balangir and others to tentatively assess the number of migrant children at the source so that residential hostel facilities could be provided in the schools to keep the children of migrating parents during migration seasons.  

But not withstanding a host of government schemes and organised campaign by the NGOs and child rights activists, it is a matter if shame that childhood continues to be burnt in brick kilns.

…………

The author is a media fellow of National Foundation of India (NFI) for the year 2012. This article is written as part of the fellowship work. He can be reached though e mail: 2006pradeep@gmail.com

Seasonal Hostels to prevent child migration

This piece was carried in hotnhitNEWS on 4th November 2012

Web link: http://hotnhitnews.com/Odisha-Seasonal-Hostels-to-prevent-child-migration-By-Pradeep-Baisakh-HotnHitNews-224004112012.htm

Odisha: Seasonal Hostels to prevent child migration

November 4, 2012

The seasonal hostels, known as residential care centre (RCC) in Odisha, started in the year 2001-02 in Balangir district and eventually experimented in the Nuapada district. The idea was that the school going children could stay back with the community and continue their study in the village school when their parents migrate out and thus the loss of education could be staved off.

PRADEEP BAISAKH

Distressed labour migration from western Odisha districts like Balangir, Nuapada, Bargarh and Kalahandi to other states has been in discussion for last one decade though it all started sometime over thirty years back. Several efforts have been undertaken by the state and non-state actors to prevent distressed migration on one hand and reduce the distress aspects in migration on the other. The major concerns in such migration have been associated with the violation of inter-state migrant workmen’s act, violation of other labour laws, and the third degree of treatment meted out to Odia labourers in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and other states. Still a major area of concern is the compulsive child labour and absence of basic education facilities for these children.

Initial efforts were undertaken by the civil society organisations to protect the education of children, which was eventually accepted by different governments. Two models have been adopted to this end.

One is to prevent the children from migrating from the villages by providing them the residential facilities in the village schools during the migration seasons when the parents are away, and the other is to design schools at the worksite to fetch education in mother tongue i.e. in Odia language in this case. While I have dealt in detail on the work site model elsewhere (Click here to see the report), this piece will mainly discuss about the seasonal hostels.

The seasonal hostels, known as residential care centre (RCC) in Odisha, started in the year 2001-02 in Balangir district and eventually experimented in the Nuapada district. The idea was that the school going children could stay back with the community and continue their study in the village school when their parents migrate out and thus the loss of education could be staved off.

RCC is opened in a suitably located school where the children of the migrating parents from three to four nearby village or schools can stay and attend classes there. During the stay of the children in RCC, the mid-day meals are also transferred from the parent school to the school that houses RCC. Initially the RCC model was a joint effort by government and NGOs with the government funding the NGOs to run the RCC. But eventually the government took over the operation and directly ran it. Some like Lok Drishti, an NGO in Nuapada, continued running independently with external funding alongside the government run ones.

Children benefited

Hrudananda Majhi is a student residing since last season at the RCC run by the Lok Drishti in the Khomtarai School in Khariar block of Nuapada district. He studies in class four. A child of regularly migrating parents and born in Hyderabad during a migration period, Hrudananda says, “I could never avail any school facilities in Andhra Pradesh before. Here, I have been staying for last two years when my parents migrate out to work.” Some other children like Sumitra Majhi and Sarat Bhoi, students of in class three and class nine respectively, also stayed in the same hostel last season. In ten such hostels run by the NGO, 253 students were accommodated last season.

Some students like Motiram Tandi and Chudamani Jaga from Khariar block of Nuapada district who have been consistently availing the facilities of seasonal hostels are now studying higher secondary (10+2) in nearby Khariar College. Otherwise, they also would have been migrating and working as semi-bonded labourers in other states.

Phulabai Kumbhar and other three girls from Belpada block of Balangir district, who stayed in the RCC, have now passed higher secondary as well.

Process followed and grey areas

Just before the families start migrating after Diwali (October/November), the block level education staff and NGOs conduct surveys to find out the number of migrant children. The children are then kept in the hostels. The NGOs in Balangir and Nuapada reach out the migrating parents and convince them to leave their children in the hostels.

The children stay in the school premises. A cook and a care-taker are appointed by the government to look after the children. It was when the government and NGOs were running RCCs jointly, the NGOs used to regularly interact with the children and the care taker to ensure that food, clothing, safe stay, first aid box, medical need etc are all put in place. Abani Panigrahi of Lok Drishti says, “At one point, there were more than 70 RCCs run by the government and NGOs accommodating about 1400 children in Nuapada”.

However, in last few years, there is apparently some reluctance in the administration to start RCC every year with beginning of the migration season. This is evident from the fact that district administration starts RCCs after people migrate out. In such case, rarely the migrant children get a place in government run RCCs.

For example, last year (2011-12), Lok Drishti surveyed and submitted a list of 1377 migrant children from a few Panchayats in three blocks namely Sinapali, Khariar and Boden. A resolution to that effect was passed by the respective School Management Committees (SMCs) requesting the government to open RCCs. But RCCs never came up. Similar was the case in Balangir district where barely 10 RCCs were run retaining about 200 students, much less than the need. Sources from Sarva Sikshya Aviyan (SSA), Odisha, suggest that even though a proposal for opening hostels for 3200 migrant students from Balangir, Nuapada and bargarh districts was sent under the head of ‘Residential Care Centre’, it was disapproved by the centre. This happened because Residential Care Centre (RCC) is an incorrect terminology, felt the centre.

This year, seasonal hostels have been approved for a total of 5089 students in Balangir, Nuapada and Bargarh districts under the head of ‘Seasonal Hostel’ which will commence this season.

In the previous years, the government run RCCs used to open in January and February leaving no scope for the migrant children to reap the benefit as they had to migrate two months before the RCCs came up. So, fake enrolments were made in RCCs, suggest information from attendance registers of RCCs attained by Lok Dristi under RTI in Nuapada district. As told by Abani Panigrahi of Lok Dristi, “Cross verification of these attendance registers revealed that some of them were not at all migrant children but actually stayed in their houses.”

Way ahead

Success of seasonal hostels depends on commitment of the government and an active involvement of the community. Survey of the migrant families is the pre-requisite for assessment of the number of prospective migrant families and migrant children. Under the law, tracking the number of migrant labourers is to be done by the labour department of the district. A collective effort by the labour, education and Panchaytiraj departments to survey the migrant children in the migration prone districts would deliver better result. Jatin Patra, a social activist based in Balangir says, “The School management Committee’s involvement at every stage e.g. surveying, beginning of hostels, accommodation of children and running of the hostels, would be the key to their effective functioning.” NGOs’ role in such ventures is also crucial. These steps would save the education of thousands of hapless migrant children and oblige the provisions of the right to education (RTE) law.

[Author is a media fellow of National Foundation of India (NFI) for the year 2012. This article is written as part of the fellowship work. He can be reached by e-mail: 2006pradeep@gmail.com]

How about schools on wheels for them?

This piece was carried in "Governance Now' in 1-15 November 2012 issue

Web link: http://governancenow.com/news/regular-story/how-about-schools-wheels-them

How about schools on wheels for them?

In Odisha, children of parents migrating outside the state for work are adding to the dropout problem. The state seems to have done precious little about it

PRADEEP BAISAKH

Photo: Kasturi Majhi in Telugu school in Rangareddy dist, AP

Kasturi Majhi left Tentulikhunti, her village, in Odisha’s Balangir district, to work in a brick kiln along with her parents in Andhra Pradesh. She was 11, old enough for work that could supplement her household income. But Majhi was also of an age when she should have been in school. A year later, her parents and she are a little consoled by the fact that she got to attend classes at a ‘worksite’ school run on the premises of the Dundigal primary school in Quthbullapur mandal of Rangareddy district in Andhra Pradesh.

However, Majhi’s case is an exception, not the norm. Such luck eludes almost 25,000-30,000 children from districts in western Odisha (Balangir, Nuapada, Kalahandi, Bargarh) who migrate seasonally with their parents for work. Most of them fail to get regular education and eventually drop out altogether. Many of them are unable to secure admission in the first place because the language of instruction is not the one they know.

Distress migration, in search of work, is common in western Odisha districts. Poverty-stricken families leave their homes for some money working in degrading conditions in cities in coastal Odisha or in neighbouring states. Balangir, Kalahandi and Nuapada, part of the imfamous KBK (undivided Kalahandi, Balangir, Koraput) region, have high incidences of malnutrition. There have been reports of parents selling their children, unable to provide food. According to the 55th national sample survey organisation (NSSO) survey, poverty in the region hit an alarming high of 87.1 percent at the turn of the millennium (1999-2000). The area has a high population of scheduled tribes and scheduled castes, both vulnerable groups.

Starvation has been endemic in the region as agriculture has been wrecked by continuous droughts. Social factors like caste discrimination, uneven land distribution and deforestation have also furthered the problem. Welfare schemes like rural employment guarantee and public distribution system of subsidised grains have not benefited as many people as they should have — the government has failed to implement them with earnest. So, the chronic poverty and starvation in the area have become the ‘push’ factor for migration of families like Majhi’s. People try and flee, exchanging the conditions at home for the brutality of work at kilns and construction sites. Those from Balangir and Nuapada, studies reveal, leave for brick kilns in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.  Some may migrate to Bhubaneswar, the state capital, and the neighbouring Cuttack. A study conducted by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and Aide et Action International (AeAI) in 100 villages in six blocks in Balangir, Nuapada, and Kalahandi in 2011-12 found that 85 percent of the migrants from Nuapada and Balangir leave for work in brick kilns while in Kalahandi, the figure stands at 62 percent. Almost 80 percent of the total migrants from the three districts leave for employment outside Odisha.

Vulnerability of migrants

The migration to brick kilns is characterised by advance payments which ranges from Rs 15,000 to Rs35,000 per pathuria-the work unit, that constitute two adult members and a child. In the brick kiln sector, child labour takes place by design, not by default. By taking advance money the workers tacitly keep themselves in bondage (locally known as bahu bandhak) for six to seven months. The transport of labourers takes place in an entrenched system of middlemen who give the advance to the workers on behalf of the kiln owners in AP, TN and elsewhere. The middlemen charge the owner for each unit of workers. The ILO-AeAI study shows that about 26 percent of the total households in these three districts migrate out for work. (This is ascertained from the migration tracking registers being maintained by the NGOs in the 100 villages studied by ILO and AeAI.) Among these, as many as 24 percent are children in the age group of 0-17 years. The children in the age group of 6-14 constitute about 11 percent of the total migrant population. This is the age group that is now entitled to get compulsory primary education under the much-hyped Right to Education Act. As much as 18 percent of the total labour force migrating from the villages are child labourers. It has been observed that any child above the age of 6 or 7 works along with his/her parents.

Inter State Migrant Workmen’s (regulation of employment and conditions of service) Act, 1979, the law regulating inter-state migration for employment in the unorganised sector, mandates the registration of the middlemen who hire such labour. The registration is to be done at the district labour office. However, in the absence of proper institutional mechanism for labour registration and half-hearted monitoring, a major chunk of labourers migrate illegally. The gullible labourers, who are already bound by the commitments of meeting stiff targets, are more often than not subjected to several forms of physical, mental and verbal harassment by their employers. The women and children, as always, remain particularly vulnerable.

Recently, a three-year-old migrant child called Pappu from Nuapada who had migrated to Nellore district of Andhra, died in suspicious circumstances. A Telugu daily, Andhra Prabha, reported it on March 23 as a suspected case of human sacrifice. 

Quantifying the migrant children

In the absence of proper tracking mechanism of the migrant workers and children, it is quite difficult to get exact estimates of their numbers. The government data provided by labour offices (as mentioned in the reply to question in the Odisha assembly in 2011) suggest that there are 290 labour contractors in four districts – Balangir, Kalahandi, Nuapada and Bargarh. According to government data, the number of migrant labourers from Balangir is 33,035; from Nuapada, it is 4,786; from Kalahandi, it is 4,256; and from Bargarh, it is 596. These are, however, highly underestimated figures.

A UNDP research paper titled ‘Migration and Human Development 2009’ quoting sources from Action Aid suggests that about 2 lakh people migrate from western Odisha to Andhra Pradesh alone. An unpublished survey done by the district administration of Nuapada in 2008 suggests that 30,000 people migrate annually (source: Abani Panigrahi, Lok Drishti, a NGO based in Nuapada district). If 11 percent of the migrants are children in the age group of 6-14, the number comes to around 22,000 from Balangir and Nuapada alone. 

Initiatives for education of migrant children

Seasonal migration in western Odisha begins in October/November of the base year with the migrant labourers returning to their villages in June/July of the next. The seasonality does not match with the academic year. As the annual exams of the schools take place in March/April, most of the children who migrate out of state miss the annual test. The ones who migrate to Bhubaneswar or Cuttack areas of Odisha can come back home during that period and appear in the exams. But most of the inter-state migrant children were forced to repeat the class upon their return. There are several cases where such children eventually dropped out from schools becoming full-time labourers. Now, however, since the rigid linkage between exam and elevation to next level has been obviated under the RTE Act, children are upgraded to the next class after appearing in a special test. However, for many, continuing in schools becomes meaningless as they miss out regular classes for nearly seven months.

Two models have been experimentally implemented to try and stem the dropout phenomenon caused by migration. One is the model of ‘seasonal hostels’ at source areas to stop children of migrants from leaving with the parents during the migration season. And the other is ‘work site schools’ run in the destination areas, at the work sites, where the children can learn in a medium of instruction that they are familiar with.

Seasonal hostels

In western Odisha the seasonal hostels, locally named as residential care centre (RCC), started in 2001-02. Initially, many NGOs in Balangir and Nuapada districts ran RCCs with the support of government and international donor agencies. It worked quite well initially. Abani Panigrahi of Lok Drishti, a NGO which has pioneered in running RCC in the area says, “At one point, there were more than 70 RCCs run by the government and NGOs, accommodating about 1,400 children in Nuapada.” The figure for RCCs in Balangir district was more than 300 accommodating about 6,000 students, informs Sanjay Mishra from Balangir. But now, due to apathy of the state government, most of the government-run RCCs have been discontinued in these two districts. In the last academic year (2011-12), barely 10 RCCs were run retaining about 200 students in Balangir and there were none in Nuapada district though there were some run by NGOs. Moreover, the government-run RCCs start operation in January/February when all the migrant children would have left with their parents.

Krishna Gopal Mohapatra, the special project director (SPD) to the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Odisha, says, “This time we have got the budget approval from the central government (65 percent of a state’s SSA budget comes from the central pool) for running seasonal hostels in Balangir, Nuapada and Bargarh districts for 5,389 migrant children.” 

Work site schools

The model of providing education to the children of the migrating parents near the work site in their own language started almost during the same time as the seasonal hostels. Some NGOs like Action Aid and Aide et Action have been running work site schools for Odia children in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. In fact, Andhra Pradesh has travelled quite some distance on this. In the last academic year (2011-12), Andhra SSA claims to have provided education to 6,453 Odia migrant children alone. Madhusudan V, officer on special duty (OSD) in the department of school education, Andhra Pradesh, says, “In the last academic year we provided education to about 21,070 inter-state migrant children who have come from Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Maharastra etc.” Aide et Action is the nodal NGO partner of the AP government to manage the show with the help of more than 140 local NGOs. For providing education to Odia children in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, Odia teachers and Odia text books are supposed to be supplied by the Odisha SSA to AP and TN under an inter-state arrangement. The NGOs facilitate this process. However, there is a visible lack of coordination between Odisha and AP. During 2011-12, AP complained that despite repeated reminders, Odisha did not send them the textbooks. Officials at the Odisha SSA admit that there is a lot more that needs to be done on the inter-state coordination aspect. “We are working out an action plan for ensuring the education of Odia children in other states,” says Mahapatra. In Tamil Nadu 430 Odia migrant children were provided education last academic year by Aide et Action.

The challenge, however, remains ensuring the Right to Education for all the migrant children. The current coverage is a very small part of the total number of children in need of such education. Besides, both the models of education are now running on an ad hoc arrangement. Institutionalisation of the same and ensuring quality education are areas which need to be seriously looked into by the policy makers of the concerned state governments.

Umi Daniel of Aide et Action says, “We need to have a larger policy debate on ‘portability of rights’ or ‘roaming access’ to rights and entitlements by the migrant population. To start with, the governments can focus on providing elementary education, facilities under ICDS and health provisions under NRHM.”

Baisakh is an Odisha-based freelance journalist and National Foundation of India (NFI) media fellow of 2012.