The state education department is working on bringing children of migrant labourers into the state’s school system. A special project aimed at bringing such children into school is being organised in collaboration with the state labour department.
The ‘Eradication of child labour’ project aims at bringing children who are out of school into a regular schooling system. The project is targeted at migrant labourers, whose children often drop out as families move between work sites. The education department will hold a meeting with labour department to get this project off the ground on August 1.
Tushar Girinath, commissioner, state department of public instructions, said, “We’ve been unable to track the children of migrant labourers in our existing mechanism. We’ve thus begun to think of doing something for this category of children in coordination with the state labour department.”
He said, “The migrant population is mostly in the construction field. We have directed that block education officers (BEO) would be best equipped to keep track of families that have been migrating, so that BEOs of the areas to which such families have moved could be kept informed.
”He said that even the census process has failed to offer an exact figure of the number of migrants. “We plan to invite big construction companies to the meeting, and we are thinking of insisting that these firms make alternative arrangements for the children of workers who have moved to their sites.”
Officials from the labour department said that, ideally, construction companies should use money from the workers’ welfare fund. “Most families on construction sites move from North Karnataka. It is the responsibility of both government and the company/person to educate workers’ children,” said an official of the labour department.
The labour and education departments will write to construction companies in the city. It will also collect the opinion of prime construction firms to understand the alternatives they could make to ensure that the children of workers are not denied quality education.
