The first contact with children living in unfavorable condition is established through regular outreach activities. Teachers and social workers identify those children and encourage them to attend non-formal education programs and to use the services available at the drop in centers (UNICEF, 2013). A peer to peer approach is also very effective where peer volunteers also conduct outreach activities to their fellow peers encouraging their participation. Because the situations of children living on the streets vary considerably, the PCAR project sponsors several type of schooling; open air schools in parks, markets and other public spaces, and non formal education in drop-in centers.Education is not a static commodity but an ongoing process and holds its own inherent value as a human right. Not only people have the right to receive quality education, they also have the right to be equipped with the skills and knowledge that will ensure long-term recognition and respect for all human rights (UNNESCO, 2007).
The ILO Country Brief on Bangladesh (2008) states that children coming from the poorest households with the lowest levels per capita expenditure are more likely to be engaged in child labor than at school. According to ILO report, approximately 9.3% of children from the poorest households are only working in comparison to the 4.1% of children from the richest households. Furthermore, only 72.8% of children from the poorest households attend school without working compared to the 84.7% in the richest households. Children who live in rural areas are more likely to be engaged in work than study - 14% compared to 11.1% in urban households (ILO, 2008). Two-thirds of working children have no education. Of working children who do have an education, 41.3% reported education to primary level, 41.7% to junior high school, and only 4.2%
to SSC/HSC level (BBS, Report on National Child Labour Survey, 2002-2003).
According to the new National Education Policy, education is free and compulsory up to grade eight, however it is estimated that more than one million children have never been to school (UNICEF, 2014). Many children dropout of the education system before completing primary school and begin working. Students of UCEP schools are from different segments of society. Most of them are distressed working children. UCEP finds out these children and deliver basic education as well as ‘market-demand’ oriented training to them to be employed. From the figure 6.4 it is found that about 77 percent UCEP students studied in different schools at their early age. Then due to various social and family-related reasons, they were bound to leave schools and engaged themselves in different income generating activities.
Figure 6.4
Studied in Other Schools before UCEP 6.8.1 Level of Study at Previous School
Many child laborers miss out on their right to education because they do not have the time to go to school or to study. Data show that working hours are negatively correlated with school attendance (UNICEF, 2014). The most vulnerable child populations in Bangladesh are those who are poor and female, poor and indigenous and poor and with special needs.
They face a ‘double disadvantage’ of being poor as well as being from a marginalized cross section of the population. These three groups face severe disadvantages in education because their needs are often neglected and the curriculum, school infrastructure, learning materials and teachers exclude them from the educational process (UNICEF, June, 2008).
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UCEP provides education, vocational training and other support services to its students who left their school in different education level and admitted to UCEP. It is found from the table no. 6.9 that 49 percent students studied up to primary level before taking admission in UCEP school, more than 23 percent studied up to class eight and only 4 percent students studied up to SSC before admission. From the table it is also important that more than 23 percent students did not studied in any school before coming to UCEP school. As UCEP aims to provide education and training to drop out children and street children who are out to or hard to reach data provided in the table is quite relating the facts. Historically, UCEP started its IGVE program with a non-formal approach when the drop-out rate in primary education was high. Over the years the rate declined across all 8 districts where UCEP works (UCEP Annual Report, 2013).
Table 6.9
Drop out Students Level of Study at Leaving Previous School
Answer Frequency Percentage
Up to Primary 147 49.0
Up to Eight 71 23.7
Up to SSC 12 4.0
Not in any school 70 23.3
Total 300 100.0
6.8.1.1 Drop-out Rate of UCEP
The reasons of drop-out include in-country migration, moving to formal schools, limited scopes to visit absent students’ homes due to political unrest etc. But the drop-out rate in UCEP schools is much lower than the national level. From the following table no. 6.10 it is found that the drop-out rate was only 2.76 percent in the year of 2011 (UCEP Annual Report, 2013). But it gradually increased in the following years, which UCEP should take in consideration and find out the feasible solution.
Table 6.10
Year-wise Drop-out Rate from UCEP School
Year Rate
2009 3.09
2010 3.3
2011 2.76
2012 3.60
2013 4.94
6.8.2 Reasons of Leaving School
There is a trade-off between child labor and the accumulation of human capital (Baland
& Robinson, 2000). Factors predicting an increase in child labor also predict reduced school attendance and an increased chance of grade repetition (Patrinos &
Psacharopoulos, 1997). In addition to school attainment, children’s reading competence decreases with child labor hours (Akabayashi & Psacharopoulos, 1999). For this reason children from disadvantaged backgrounds do worse than those from advantaged backgrounds by a greater amount than elsewhere (Hirsch, 2007). As well as being aware of the importance of social background, children interact with the education system in different ways. There is relationship between confidence, self-esteem and literacy skills, with children who had been able to develop reading and writing confidence outside school having a strong advantage (Kellett & Dar, 2007). The more advantaged children described a much richer set of experiences in school, inside and outside the curriculum, while for the disadvantaged children issues such as discipline and detention were more apparent (Sutton, Dearden, & Middleton, 2007). Due to poverty and some other unavoidable reasons, people migrate to cities and increase the underprivileged children rate. They have to adapt with new environment and mostly need more time to understand city-behavior. In this sense the transition from the rural to the urban meant that each city could be understood as a cultural observation laboratory (Xavier, 2000).
Life and working opportunity environments require skills and content of knowledge.
Working children often deprived of these due to lack of prospect in early life. To improve their quality they need flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural skills, productivity and accountability, leadership and responsibility (Wlliamson & Payton, 2009).
It is identified that there is a role of a series of demographic correlates of child labor.
Older children are more likely to work, while children with higher educational attainment for a given age are more likely to be in school. Girls are more likely to be in school and not working, while children living in rural areas are more likely to be working and not in school. Conditional on household wealth and socioeconomic status, children living in households with many children are more likely to work and less likely to be in school (Kruger, Soarers, & Berthelon, 2007). In addition to the effects of
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income, the mother’s education level has an effect on student academic achievement.
Mother’s education had a more significant effect on children’s school result than income. Through multiple studies, the mother’s educational level was a predictor of school completion for students in the studies (Halpem-Felscher, et al., 1997). Peters and Mullis (1997) found that parental education had a significant effect on academic achievement. The mother’s education level had a 20% higher affect than the father’s education level on the academic outcomes of adolescents (Peters & Mullis, 1997). It is found that when a variety of reading materials are available in the home, student scores increased “by more than four points, schooling increased by more than one-third of a year, wages increased by 4%, and labor market experience for women increased by 0.2 years” (Peters & Mullis, 1997). Poverty is found as significantly affects the resources available to students. So, it should not compare the results achieved by UCEP students to students passed from other schools. Due to lack of resources, students struggle to reach the same academic achievement levels of students not living in poverty (Lacour &
Tissington, 2011). According to Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report (UNESCO, 2008), there has been a 25% decreased since 1999 in the number of children not at school, 72 million were still not in school by 2005. Girls account for 57% of all out-of-school children. The number of additional children to be enrolled by 2015 in the high population E-9 countries is approximately 70 million if the goal of UPE is to become a reality (Delamonica, Mehrotra, & Vandemoortele, 2001). The E-9 countries are Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan and between amount to more than half of the out-of-school children in the world (UNICEF, 2008). As it is mentioned by Hirsch, children growing up in poverty and disadvantage are less likely to do well at school. This feeds into disadvantage in later life and in turn affects their childhood. To break this cycle, we need to address the attitudes and experiences that lie behind social differences in education (Hirsch, 2007).
UCEP students admitted from different corners of society most of them were ignorant about the importance of education of their children or preferred their children to send for income generating activities rather to send to school. But most of the guardians preferred to send their children to working place to earn money for their family due to poverty. From the table 6.11 it is found that more than 37 percent parents sent their
children to earn money due to poverty before completing the course. More than 13 percent student left school due to involvement in income generating activities where they had to stay more time. Lack of awareness and unwillingness of the guardians were other important reasons for leaving previous school. Few guardians shifted their children to UCEP school for better marketable training and education.
Table 6.11
Reasons of Leaving Previous School
Reasons No. of Respondents Percentage
Poverty 112 37.3
Lack of Awareness 23 7.7
Guardian's Unwillingness 22 7.3
Inability to Adapt with School 13 4.3
Involvement in Job 40 13.3
Decision toAadmit in UCEP School 8 2.7
Others* 12 4.1
Never Studied before UCEP School 70 23.3
Total 300 100.0
* Distance of school, fail to pass, migration
6.9 Role of Curriculum in Developing Socio-Economic Condition