31 August 2009
Every morning, when he carried plastic bags of chopped green chillies and onions to his father’s tea stall at Kali Bari Marg in the Indian capital, Pramod, eight, dreaded running into uniformed children walking to school.
His father needed the chillies and onions for making ‘pakoras’ (deep fried fritters) but Pramod would rather have carried a school bag.
“I felt ashamed at not being in a uniform, carrying vegetables instead of books,” says Pramod, one of India’s five million school dropouts.
DFID’s commitment to these vulnerable children is behind our support for a mobile school project which is now providing Pramod, and children like him, with an education – inside a bright yellow bus.
“If the children can’t make it to school, we have to take the school to them, to their doorstep,” says Sudama, 25, the Bus School teacher who says that some of the 100 children who attend every day do not even know their age.
Equipped with a TV screen, books, puzzles, and toys, the children rush to meet the bus, which arrives near the four designated slums every morning.
Overcoming barriers to education
India passed the Right to Education Bill in August promising primary education to children between 6-14, but obstacles in the way of implementing the policy are daunting.
Children like Pramod invariably migrate to big cities with their parents to escape rural poverty, and end up living in slums. The parents find work as day labourers on construction sites and usually try to enrol their children at the nearest school.
But they tend to be daunted by the admissions procedure. For example, many parents are unable to make sense of the paperwork as they cannot read or write.
Some parents won’t get that far. Without an education themselves, they may not see the benefits school can bring their kids. While for others, living in poverty means a child’s first priority is a job to help support the family.
For Pramod’s parents, even visiting a nearby school was difficult because his parents left home early for work and returned late in the evening.
The Bus School project is an example of how aid money is being used to ensure the very poorest children are not forgotten.
The Bus School: how it works
For children like Pramod, the yellow bus – equipped as a mobile school – is knocking down the barriers that deprive the poorest children in the country of primary education.
The bus is run by Salaam Baalak Trust as part of the Indian government’s successful Education for All, or Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA), programme to get children who had dropped out of school for a host of reasons back into the classroom.
Funded by DFID, the SSA programme has slashed the number of children out of school from 25 million to five million.
“Some kids have lost a whole year,” explains Sudama. “Others have never been to school. We get them up to the right level and then admit them into mainstream primary schools,”
Before Sudama can start filling the gaps in the children’s knowledge, the parents first have to be encouraged to let their kids join the Bus Schools. Special ‘community mobilisers’ go into the slums to identify children who should be at school and talk to the parents.
It takes time up to build their trust. Community mobiliser Durgesh Gupta says that parents often need the children to look after younger siblings, perform household chores, or help them at work.
Also, their experience of the school back in the village has often been unsatisfactory. With absentee teachers, dingy classrooms and uninspired teaching, they feel their children have already been let down once.
“I have to reassure them that their kids will actually learn the skills they need,” said Durgesh. “Another powerful incentive is that the books are free and the children get a piece of fruit every day.”
Durgesh’s strategy is to ask for the children to come for just one hour initially. As the parents’ trust builds up and they see their children learning, they willingly send them for two hours.
More than 200 children have so far made the transition from being schooled in the yellow bus to regular attendance at primary school. Another 25 buses are planned.
“They feel a great pride in the bus because it comes especially for them. Without the bus, they stand no chance of getting back to school. It transforms their lives and gives them hope,” says Gupta.
Key facts
- The Bus Schools project is part of the Indian Government’s wider education programme, Sarva Shiksha, Abhiyaan (SSA)
- Since 2003, SSA has led to 30 million more children attending school, supported by DFID with £300 million of funding over the past five years
- India is likely to meet its targets for primary education set out by the Millennium Development Goals thanks to the big rise in enrolment of primary school children. We will give a further £70 million up until 2010 to help reach these targets
- More than 400 of the hardest-to-reach children have been reached by the Bus School project so far, with 200 going on to join formal primary schools
- With our support the Indian government plans to increase the number of Delhi bus schools to 25 – providing an education for an estimated 5,000 more children a year.