A year ago, Chandra*, a bright eyed six year old, was among the “lucky” few. Unlike most other children in her neighbourhood, her parents were sending her to a government school. She is the daughter of construction labourers; the invisible hands and legs, constructing the most spectacular and beautiful high-rise structures in Bengaluru, while living in makeshift metallic structures in the city’s slums.
Chandra’s luck however soon ran out. Her younger sibling had outgrown his makeshift cloth cradle, at the construction site where her mother worked.
Chandra was then forced to become a “mother” to her brother.She is not a baby-sitter, but a full time mother to her little brother today. From that day onwards, her mother has no role in caring for the child, except for bringing home income. Chandra refers to her sibling as “Nanna Magu” (my child) and does not resent the responsibility of having to care for him.
From learning addition and subtraction one day, she has abruptly moved on to take on feeding, bathing and taking care of a one year old. School, was ruled out for the next few years and perhaps for ever.
I decide to have a conversation with her mother with the intent of convincing her to send Chandra back to school.
She tells me that she would have really liked for her to go to school and get enough skills to not end up as a labourer like her. But she has to take care of the baby. The mother had tried to send her to school with the baby. But she was beaten by the teacher and thrown out. I ask her if she has never complained about it. She laughs and tells me that beating was a common practice in these schools. She also reveals that the schools want money from them even though it is free. They often threaten the parents that they will not allow kids if they don’t give money.
I resist the urge to tell her to go to the police, and she adds:
“I also feel scared Amma. When we go to work, she is left to fend for herself in this dangerous area, where the most unscrupulous people thrive. If there was a creche to take care of the baby at the construction site when I work, Chandra can go to school.”
So the actual hurdle to Chandra’s education is not unconvinced parents, but the lack of a child-care infrastructure for children less than six years old. Research reveals that there is a legal mandate to builders to provide with a suitable place for the use of children under the age of six years of female workers. But like most laws, this is often flouted by builders and in the off-chance when they get pulled up for labour law violations it is settled by paying a fine or a bribe. This is highly unfortunate, because the economics of running a crèche are such that it is relatively a minuscule amount of money. Even if the builders pass on the entire amount to the buyer, the additional expense that the buyer would incur would be about ₹ 720/ YEAR.
So when we buy our dream home, perhaps among the many details that we check, pro-actively checking if they are making provisions for the welfare of infants and toddlers on construction sites would help in some measure.
It is true that we have spoken about only one specific reason why a particular child, is not going to school. It is the proverbial tip of an iceberg. The matter becomes far more complex when the child concerned is occupied in economic activity, in the form of child labour. Abusive parents, alcohol addiction, gender discrimination and such other issues bring a different set of complexities.
However, fixing the hurdles to education, is just as important as creating an infrastructure for education. This can only happen when we understand the socio-economic factors behind the hurdles and will not happen with superficial declarations of weakly implemented acts.
As for Chandra, she was enabled by our slum bridge centre project to cover lost ground in education and go back to school this year along with 22 others like her.
If we see her today, she runs to us in delight and tells us. “My dream is to someday be able to go to the “Dodda Shale” (literally translating to “big school” and she means “high school”), she declares with a twinkle in her eyes. We humbly hope to make this possible for her and many other Chandra’s like her.
We have identified the next set of 40 students of various ages and we hope to bring them into the mainstream by the next academic. If you wish to be a part of this project see more details here
*True account. Name changed for privacy