The Supreme Court of India, on April 13, 2021 has directed all the states to inform the court about the number and status of migrant children in India and directed the protection of their fundamental rights during the deadly COVID-19 pandemic in India. Unsurprisingly, it took us more than a year into the pandemic to take note of the situation of one of the most marginalized categories of children in India.

While the first wave of the pandemic shook the country by surprise when we witnessed the unprecedented migrant crisis in India, very limited attention was paid to the children of those migrant communities who were also on the move and were under greater vulnerability of missing out on important developmental aspects, especially education. The coverage or advocacy around this aspect of the migrant crisis has been fairly limited during the pandemic and the recent Supreme Court directive is hoped to give some nudge to this extremely crucial issue.

To put things into perspective, as per Census 2011, every fifth migrant in India is a child tallying a total population of 92.95 million migrant children. Studies indicate that migrant children between the age of 6-18 years are more vulnerable with higher probabilities of child labour and discontinued educational opportunities. 22.1 percent of migrant children between this age group are not enrolled in any educational institution. Education departments official documents identify migrant children as the ones who are more prone to dropouts and are often the hardest to reach or the most vulnerable category.

The ongoing pandemic has further fuelled up the vulnerable situation of such periled category.

Understanding the Right to Education for migrant childrenThe Right to Education Act includes migrant children through the following provisions : that the Act ensures that children from the disadvantaged group or weaker sections will not be discriminated against or prevented in any manner in attending schools (Section 9) and that the local authorities shall ensure admission of children from migrant families (Section 9(k)) and that the child has the right to seek transfer to any other school (except private unaided and special category school) and will be immediately issued a transfer certificate by the head teacher or in-charge of the school (Section 5).

A written reply to the Rajya Sabha in 2019 by the Ministry of Education(MoE) further clarifies RTE Acts role with respect to migrant children. It was mentioned that the RTE Act, 2009 provides for free and compulsory elementary education of equitable quality to all children, including the children of migrant workers, between 6-14 years of age. This is ensured through Section 6 (by establishing sufficient schools in the neighbourhood areas). Operationalization of the Act has happened through Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan, Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyaan and Teacher Education which is now subsumed under the Samagra Siksha Abhiyaan. In the reply, the MoE mentioned having approved the establishment of over 2.04 lakh primary schools and 1.59 lakh upper primary schools, 1021 residential schools with accommodation capacities of 1,08,275 children. The government also claims to be addressing the issues of seasonal migration by using various strategies like conducting household surveys/annual upation of the surveys to identify out of school children. Samagra Sikhsa Abhiyaan, ensures provision of elementary education to migrant children through provision like seasonal hostels/residential camps in villages during migration periods, special residential/non-residential training centres for out of school children/dropout/migrant children. Provision of mid day meals, free textbooks and free uniforms also aid the cause.

The RTE Act and the Samagra Siksha Abhiyaan, even though robust, fail to address the complexities and nuances of the unique issues of migrant children in India. Despite the RTE Acts mandate and implementation; the ground reality seems to be very different. Due to varied reasons and trends of inter state migration, migrant children often experience disruption in education and frequently drop out of education. Another pertinent issue is of loss and gaps in learning/education for migrant children and it is often difficult to cope up with varying academic curriculum, language of instruction, peer-support, difficulty of re-enrolling in another school etc. In many cases, low-income parents are also leaving low-budget private schools and opting for government schools. All of this has further exacerbated during the pandemic. Lets discuss some of the other pressing problems around the issue.

Lack of a unified definition

The foremost problem is of definition and identification. The question that demands an answer is who exactly are migrant children? Different national surveys like the Census, the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), National Family Health Survey (NFHS) etc. define them differently and we still lack a comprehensive policy definition of who a migrant children is. It is important to highlight that migrant children and its ensued category is in no way homogeneous and comprises many sub-categories and groups. The nature of migration could be on account of geography, seasonality, natural/ man-made disasters, political distress, citizenship and many other factors. The sub-categorizing further complicates the issue of education provisioning and restricts having a single blanket approach to this highly complex socio-economic issue.

Lack of concerted data

Despite many surveys accounting for data on migration, there still exist a serious data gap on the extent and expanse of migration within the country. The gap is even more for nuanced micro data such as the data on migrant children who are of the school going age. Official government documents also echo this concern in its educational statistics on migration status of students in rural/urban areas. As highlighted by a policy brief on migrants by UNESCO, this lack of refined data and its related analytics often hamper the efficient design and delivery of services for migrants in India.

Increased vulnerability

Migrants are not a homogenous category and even within this there are certain migrant categories especially children of informal labourers (like construction workers, domestic workers, mine workers, agricultural labourers etc.) that are often at the margins when it comes to access and entitlements. They face denial of even basic first and second generation human rights and entitlements like housing, food, sanitation, clean drinking water, public health and finance let alone education which is at the bottom of their to get list. It is no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic has hit them the most and has drastically impacted their access to basic services which was already in a state of concern. For education in particular, recent empirical work and field research have highlighted that it is often the migrant children with limited access to resources who are suffering the most during education related lockdowns in the country.

Dishevelled policy focus

Migrant children and their educational rights find a very fragmented mention in the Indian policy landscape. In addition to primary Acts such as the RTE Act and related schemes like Samagra Siksha Abhiyaan, the educational rights of migrant children can also be traced in some other policies and guidelines. The National Education Policy, 2020 also includes migrant communities under its broader ambit of Socio-Economically Disadvantaged Groups(SEDGs) and talks about migrant children and their needs in the light of curtailing dropouts in education as well as ensuring universal access to education. The policy proposes to bring in alternative and innovative education centres with civil society partnership to bring back the children who are dropping out into mainstream education (Section 3.2). While the insistence on access and continuation is applauded, it fails to acknowledge the systemic challenges of design and teaching which are equally important to ensure meaningful participation of migrant children in education. Moreover, ironically, while the migrant children can be further subdivided into various categories as discussed above, the policies and plans have rather put migrant communities itself as a sub-category under SEDGs. The problem would certainly arise when we look to dam the ocean and not the river flowing into it. Likewise, while the policy should have focused on the river-like category of migrant communities, it focuses on the ocean of SEDGs, the result of which is not unpredictable.

For COVID in particular, the MoE had issued a guideline in July, 2020 and then in January,2021 to continue education of the children of migrant labourers. The guideline is fairly comprehensive in directing state education departments to keep a close track of in/out migration of children from the schools and ensure no denial of admission to migrant children without asking for any documentation (except identity cards). Their continued learning has to be ensured through remedial classes and adequate provision of books and other materials to ensure uninterrupted education. As per these guidelines, the residential school students should also be provided temporary admission in schools nearby their homes, as they may not go back to their residential schools during COVID19. The Student Learning Enhancement Guidelines by the CBSE also mentions the needs and requirements of migrant children to some extent. The document has provided a summary of some of the information received from States/UTs up to July, 2020. Some of the data pertaining to migrant children are enumerated as under:

Till July 2020, only 9 states had completed the identification and mapping of migrant children. An updated status of this data is still awaited to accurately ascertain the magnanimity of migration in schools.

However, there is still a lack of focus on migrant children in other comprehensive education guidelines/initiatives (especially in digital education) released during the COVID-19 pandemic. The India Report Digital Education (2020) makes only a passing mention to the migrant children with no dedicated plan of action or existing initiatives to cater to their needs. The acknowledgement of their existence would do no good without remedial action.

Lastly, one key Act dealing with the community, is the Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act (1979). However, this Act remains silent on education provisioning of the children of migrant workers. More recently, the NITI Ayog has also come up with the Draft National Policy on migrant workers which addresses issues of education. It proposes for the MOE to take measures to mainstream migrant childrens education, map migrant children, and provide local-language teachers in migrant destinations making use of the RTE Act.

Towards Solutions

There are three steps to overcome any social or socio-economic challenge. The first being the acknowledgment of the existence of the social group or community, followed by the acknowledgment of the existence of challenges barring upliftment of the said group, which would eventually lead to pinning down the remedial action in the right direction to overcome those hindrances. Unfortunately, the policies and laws in relation to the education of the migrant communities have been swinging between the first and second step. While the government has acknowledged the existence of migrant communities, formal community specific challenges are yet to be identified and acknowledged. To move ahead with a remedial action without such identification would be as good as jumping off a cliff assuming it to be a small rock, only to fall flat. This can be done by collecting robust micro-level, de-segregated data on the educational status of migrant children in India. The supreme court directive is a great push in that direction.

Next is to review and revise the existing policies and bring in place a comprehensive framework guiding the educational rights and access of migrant children in India. This framework has to take into consideration not just issues of infrastructure (like provision of neighbourhood schools, admissions, provisioning of hostels, provisioning of educational materials etc.) but also of design (like multilingual mode of instruction, peer support, flexible curriculum and evaluation, bridge courses, presence of para-teachers who are well equipped and sensitized to address the needs of migrant teachers etc.). As pointed by literature, these efforts have to be targeted at early stages of education to minimize the possibility of learning losses and maximize age-appropriate learning. It is also important to reiterate the crucial role of rural/urban local authorities in identifying migrant children and working closely with local school bodies to ensure meaningful participation of migrant children. MOIs guidelines on Special Training arrangement for out of school children has already envisioned this in great details. What can be new is the use of Information and Communication Technology(ICT) in education or digital learning, which, despite its range of scepticism, can act as a great enabler and mobilizer if deployed well. There is no better time than COVID-19 pandemic to pilot that.

Finally, existing Acts like the Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act (1979) must be revised to include educational provisions for children of migrant workers in India.

In Conclusion

Like any other well intended policy and legislation in India, due recognition has been given to the right to equitable education for migrant children in India, in principle but not in practice. Having laid strong foundations in the form of the RTE Act and Samagra Siksha Abhiyaan along with other education policies, the focus now should be for the provisioning of equitable education by way of executive and political manifestations of such Acts and such policies. The challenges of the pandemic should in no way side-line the cause of migrant children or dampen the progresses already made. High quality, equitable and inclusive education has to be the first step in including the migrant communities in this long voyage of development in India.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Always on the move: The troubling landscape of the right to education for migrant children in India - The Times of India Blog