M A I N   N E W S

RTE challenge: Covering 60m ‘invisible’ children
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service

His story resonates through the Kotla construction site, which bears testimony to the gravest challenge before the RTE law - that of reaching the marginalised children, who work to supplement family incomes.

Over 30 million children remain “invisible”, employed as they are in houses and farms; 35 million are estimated to be in need of protection; another 45,000 go missing annually, according to National Human Rights Commission and over eight million aged 6 to 14 years are out of school.

“The challenge is to reach these unreachable children. Delhi alone has around 5 lakh child workers. Unless we get the NGOs on board, there’s little chance of including them,” warns Amod Kant, chairperson of the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR).

Under the Act, the National and State Commissions for Protection of Child Rights are nodal agencies for monitoring its implementation; these will entertain complaints and appeals. However, out of 35 states and UTs, just five - Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Sikkim and Goa - have these commissions. The rest, under RTE law, must set up the right to education protection authorities, replacing these with commissions in a year. “Commissions are yet to come up in many states. Equally difficult is to prepare unschooled kids for age appropriate classes by first sending them to alternative education systems,” Kant says.

Enquiries reveal that the alternative education scheme, under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, to bring out-of-school children to elementary schools, has helped little. Between 2007 and 2008, 11 lakh children were targeted; just 60 per cent reached school.

But the interest in education is immense provided someone bridges the gap between unschooled children and the government.