Child Development
From End Of Poverty
5. Child Development:
Once the POs have attained sufficient qualities to respond to the problems in their respective communities, ASSIST provides them an opportunity to enhance their human resources and ensure compulsory elementary education for all their children in the age group of 5-14 and enrich the knowledge and skills for adolescents through transitional education centres and non-formal vocational training. These activities will contribute a lot to strengthen the POs and to continue the development process in their respective communities in accordance with changing trends from time to time.
Strengthening Public Institutions:
Under this phase of Education Development, ASSIST along with the people’s organisations tries to look for the existing learning opportunities within the community and in the area. In this process, the first activity envisaged is making efforts to strengthen the existing public institutions in the target area. There is no point of duplicating the efforts in the area. Government has been making serious efforts to promote literacy level in the rural area and enhancing learning opportunities in the region. Hence, the project intends at first to make efforts to strengthen the educational infrastructure in the region. By working with the people’s organisations, this activity aims at enhancing the confidence among the target people on the prevailing institutional facilities. Through this, the people’s organisations could take up any required activity to convert the public institution as people-friendly and child-friendly. Possible activities could be renovating the school building, improving water and sanitary facilities, provision of play-ground, making surroundings clean and tidy with trees in good environment and fencing, etc.
Transitional Education Centres:
Sending children to school is an important way of preventing child labour and giving children a chance to learn. Transitional Education Centres (TECs) are started for the rehabilitation of working children at the age group 6-14. Once the parents and the children are convinced and the children are withdrawn from the work they will be admitted into these centres. If they are admitted directly into the mainstream the children may feel shy because of their age group and there is a danger that they get mentally disturbed. Hence these centres will act as bridge schools for the working children and the schools dropouts. Often the Government schools are too rigid and it is difficult for children accustomed to the atmosphere and to adjust to the formality of the mainstream.
Transitional Education Centres are often initiated by the village members. It is their own centre, operated by them and therefore much more suited to the needs of their children. These centres provide a realistic alternative to work and create an opportunity for education for poorer children for whom a mainstream school may not be a possibility. Once the children are habituated to come to these centres, their skills, knowledge and talents will be improved through non-formal education methods. Through this, within a short span of time the level of children will be upgraded and later they will be admitted into the mainstream.
In total, this activity aims at achieving the objective of ensuring that all the children in the age group of 6-14 attend schools regularly. Children will also be taught good habits, sports and games, songs and dances, etc apart from organising competitive examinations periodically to exhibit their talents and to promote competitive spirit.
Training to teachers and members:
Another important problem identified especially in the rural areas is the lack of good-will among the teachers on the villagers and vice versa. The teachers keep complaining that the parents are not showing interest on the education of their children and the villagers complain about the performance and seriousness of the teachers. One needs to develop cordial relationship between the teachers and parents in order to promote better education facilities to the children of the particular village. Hence, the project intends to organise training camps for teachers and members of the Village Education Committee on specifying their goals and necessity to work in good environment to promote the literacy level in the target villages.
Vocational Training for Adolescents:
These centres are designed as full-board hostels for adolescents from rural communities who have little or no education and no chance of an opportunity of obtaining a skilled job. Within these centres, classes are taken for adolescents in areas such as Leather Goods Making, Radio and TV Mechanism, Carpentry, Electrical, Motor Winding and Medical and Lab Technology, Computer Operator, etc. They receive a relevant and vocational training designed to lead them directly into decent employment. Most of these young people will have a childhood spent labouring for a small wage. These centres aim to compensate for the lack of an education and train the youth so that, despite the fact that they were child labourers, they may still have a chance for a better future.
In addition to skill training, the adolescents are exposed to all the required managerial skills, marketing skills and day-to-day skill upgradation techniques. This training also provides an opportunity for youth to mix with one another and learn to live with community spirit and good manners and habits.
