Child Labour and Education - Essay, UPSC MAINS | Course for UPPSC Preparation - UPPSC (UP) PDF Download

Child Labour  and Education

structure

(1) Opening    —    Unfortunate manifestation of economic compulsions as well as socio-cultural perceptions.

(2) Body    —    State stands as the ultimate guardian of the children.

    —    Primary education in India is not compulsory, nor is child labour illegal.

    —    India is a significant exception to the global trend toward the removal of children from the labour force.

    —    Indians reject compulsory education.

    —    Development since independence.

    —    Primary education.

    —    Acts of Parliament.

    —    Quote J.P. Naik.

    —    Recent development.

    —    Obstacles to the achievement of universal.

    —    Attitude of officialdom.

(3) Closing    —    The general improvement in socio-economic conditions of people will result in gradual elimination of child labour.

From ancient items, children were required to do some work either at home or in the field along with their parents. The problem of child labour was identified as a major problem in the 19th century when the first factory was started in mid 19th century and legislative measures were first adopted as early as 1881. It is an unfortunate manifestation of economic compulsions as well as socio-cultural perceptions.

The governments of all developed countries and many developing countries have removed children from the labour force and required that they attend school. They believe that employers should not be permitted to employ child labour and that parents, no matter how poor, should not be allowed to keep their children out of school. Modern states regard education as a legal duty, nor merely a right; parents are required to send their children to school, children are required to attend school, and the state is obligated to enforce compulsory education. Compulsory primary education is that policy instrument by which the state effectively removes children from the labour force. The state thus stands as the ultimate guardian of children, protecting them against both parents and would be employers.

The child labourers stay at home to care for cattle, tend younger children, collect firewood, and work in the fields. They find employment in cottage industries, tea-stalls, restaurants, or as household workers in middle class homes. They become prostitutes or live as street children, begging or picking rags and bottles from trash for resale. Many are bonded labourers tending cattle and working as agricultural labourers for local landowners.

The Indian law prohibits the employment of children in factories,  but not in cottage industries, family households, restaurants, or in agriculture if helping to their parents. Indeed, government officials do not regard the employment of children in cottage industries as child labour, though working conditions in these shops are often inferior to those of the large factories.

 Many countries of Africa with income levels lower than India have expanded mass education with impressive increases in literacy. China which had an illiteracy rate comparable to that of India 40 years ago, now has half the illiteracy rate of India. South Korea and Taiwan, both poor countries with high illiteracy rates a generation ago, moved toward universal and compulsory education while their per capita incomes were close to that of India. Adult literacy rates in both countries ar now over 90 per cent.

Previously Indians rejected compulsory education, arguing that primary schools do not properly train the children of the poor to work, that the children of the poor should work rather than attend schools that prepare them for “service” or white-collar occupations, that the education of the poor would lead to increased unemployment and social and political disorder, that the children of the lower classes should learn to work with their hands rather than with their heads (skills more readily acquired by early entry into the labour force than by attending schools) that schools dropouts and child labour are a consequence, not a cause, of poverty, and that parents, not the state, should be the ultimate guardians of children. Rhetoric notwithstanding, India’s policy-makers have not regarded mass education as essential to India’s modernisation. They have instead put resources into elite government schools, state-aided private schools, and higher education in an effort to create an educated class that is equal to educated classes in the West and that is capable of creating and managing modern `enclave economy’.

Since Independence the Government of India, every commission appointed by the government, the ruling Congress Party, all opposition parties, and all state government have advocated ending child labour and establishing compulsory, universal primary education for all children up to the age of 14. This commitment dates to the turn of the century when Gopal Krishna Gokhale, then president of the Indian National Congress unsuccessfully urged the British to establish free and compulsory elementary education. In the 1930s provincial governments under the control of the Indian National Congress passed legislation authorising local bodies to introduce compulsory education.

The Indian Constitution of 1950 declared that ‘the State shall endeavor to provide, within a period of ten years from the commencement of this Constitution, for free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of 14 years.” What are called compulsory Primary Education acts were passed by most of the state government, while the number of primary schools leaped drastically.

Legislation restricting the employment of children in mines and factories was introduced by the British early in the century. In the 1950s Parliament passed several acts prohibiting the employment of children in plantation, mines, merchant shipping, and in the bidi (indigenous cigarettes) and cigar industries. The use of apprentices below the age of 14 was prohibited. As with so-called compulsory education legislation, these measures had widespread support. Both goals were confirmed in 1979, the International year of the Child, when the Indian government appointed a commission to inquire into the state of India’s children and to make recommendations for their improved well-being.

Though 66 years have passed since the Indian constitution went into effect, most observers would agree with the late J.P. Naik, India’s foremost scholar of education, that “the goal of universal primary education remains as elusive as ever before”.

The Labour Ministry has indicated that “despite the provisions of restrictive labour laws, the practice (of child labour) continues unabated because exploitation of children is of financial advantage to employers and an economic compulsion to parents.” The government, therefore, accepts child labour as a “harsh reality” and proposes that measures be taken to improve the working conditions of children rather than to remove them from the work force. Under new legislation the government proposes to give attention to eliminating the employment of children in hazardous occupations, improving conditions of work, regulating the hours of work and wages paid, and providing informal supplementary education programmes for working children. These new policies, long-advocated by a number of government officials, represent a significant modification of the policies recommended by the Committee on Child Labour that primary attention be given to the enforcement of child-labour laws.

Thus there is historical comparative evi

dence to suggest that the major obstacles to the achievement of universal primary education and the abolition of child labour are not the level of industrialisation, per capita income and the socio-economic conditions of families, the level of overall government expenditures in education,  nor the demographic consequences of a rapid expansion in the number of school age children, four widely-suggested explanations. India has made less of an effort to move children out of the labour force and out of their homes into the school system than many other countries not for economic or demographic reasons but because of the attitudes of government officials, politicians, trade union leaders, workers in voluntary agencies, religious fixtures, intellectuals, and the influential middle-class toward child labour and compulsory primary-school education.

Of particular importance, are the attitudes of officialdom itself, especially officials of the state and central education and labour departments and ministries. The desires of low-income parents to send their children to work or to employ them at home, and of employers who seek low wage, pliable, non-unionised labour, is of secondary importance because elsewhere in the world a large proportion of parents and employers have also supported child labour and opposed compulsory education. It is the absence of strong support for governmental intervention from within the state apparatus itself and the absence of a political coalition outside the state apparatus pressing for government and statements by politicians, officials, educators, and social activists notwithstanding, there is very little political support in India for compulsory education or for the enforcement of laws banning the employment of children.

Child labour cannot be totally eradicated unless it is supplemented by comprehensive socio-economic programmes and educational uplift of the under privileged sections of the society and by a total change in the attitude of the society towards child labour. In short, the general improvement in socio-economic conditions of people will result in gradual radial elimination of child labour.