Helping Minds: National Child Labor Project Schools

Helping Minds team discussed about the National Child Labor Project (NCLP) Schools and decided to find out how Helping Minds can extend support to NCLP schools.

As a first step, Muppi from our team visited Coimbatore to meet Collector Umanath IAS to check on NCLP Schools. Umanath IAS provided the details about the schools.

NCLP schools are funded directly by Central Government, and the fund is managed by district collector. General data about these schools in Coimbatore
Total NCLP Schools in Coimbatore : 21
Total Teaching Staff : 69 (Approx 3 to each school)
Non teaching staff for each school (Helper) : 1 (Cooking, cleaning)
Ages of students in school : 9 to 14
Coordinator for all 21 schools : 1 (Mr Vijaya Kumar)

The salary paid for the teachers in NCLP schools is very less and so the collector has written to government saying the salary can be increased for the staff to have better management of these schools. 90% of the students are immigrants from other state (Manipur, Assam etc). Most of them come here as cheap labour, once the work is finished, they go back or move to some other jobs. Making the students continue in the school and advising parents about the importance of education are really challenging tasks for the officials here.

Here are few statistics about Child labor in India -

Of 12.6 million children in hazardous occupations in the world, India has the highest number of labourers in the world under 14 years of age.

According to the New Delhi-based National Sample Survey Organisation, nearly 16.4 million Indian children aged 5-14 years are engaged in economic activities and domestic or non-remunerative work. The World Bank puts that figure at 44 million.

National Child Labor Project is a Central Government program, with the help of UNICEF, which aims to provide education for the children who were employed. The NCLP schools are different from the normal schools since the education needs of the students are different. The education needs and the aptitude of the students are assessed and they are taught here till they are good enough to be brought to the mainstream regular schools. In the state of Tamil Nadu, NCLP has helped more than 3,600 child labourers leave their jobs and be mainstreamed into regular schools.

Muppi visited three NCLP schools in Karunya Nagar, Kaaramadai and Rangarajapuram. Some school buildings are government owned and some are rented. There is just one small building, very small in size, with asbestos on top and side. Actually it is very difficult for the kids to sit there during summer time. The students were singing songs, rhymes etc to reveal their talents. Muppi and friends had a look at notebooks of each kids and checked them how good they are at what they have written and were amazed to see the way they were responding. The students are making very good progress overall.

Link to Coimbatore NCLP Schools visit photos:

https://picasaweb.google.com/muppitathi/KovaiTrip?authkey=Gv1sRgCO7rnqWdg6-T6QE&feat=directlink&fgl=true&pli=1#