ABSTRACT
Education is a necessary element and one of the most important means of societal progress. Based on their literacy rate, a country’s development could either be appreciated or depreciated. Civil unrest and other social evils result in a lack of education. Child labour is one of the outcomes that calls into question our social behaviour about the country’s future. The global epidemic has had a disastrous effect on every element of society, including this one. Working from home and taking online classes may appeal to a certain group of people. It’s been a tragedy for the remainder of the underprivileged. The situation worsened for those children who were exposed to the virus, and the fight was aggravated for the comfort of the privileged. India, as a varied country with numerous cultures, adheres to legal parameters that are also respectful of other traditions. We can distinguish between right and wrong norms with the help of education. Educational cultures should be considered the foundation of progress among various cultures. The study goes through all of the other issues of child labour, as well as the role of education in eradicating it. It is difficult to combat social taboos without educating the people of a country, but it is even more difficult to combat social taboos with educated people who are not socially aware.
KEYWORDS: Education, Children, Unprivileged, Labour
INTRODUCTION
Education’s impact on preventing child labour is a very subjective topic, especially while education is still a privilege, if not a luxury, for many people. There is no denying that education is essential for a country’s comprehensive development. To conclude the impact of education on child labour, we must first understand the country’s history of child labour and how to address this unethical practice. India’s average literacy rate is 77.70 per cent, according to data from the National Statistical Office (NSO). To fully realise why child labour come into existence in the first place, we must first comprehend the integration of modern societal developments and why it is still a major concern. Child labour is one of the numerous social issues that might arise as a result of a lack of education. We’ve gone over all of the primary reasons for developing an educational-based development and how it affects society. The rate of child labourers also varies by gender, according to the research. Male kid labourers have a greater rate than female child labourers. Such methods as child labour are seen as a worthwhile investment by the market that operates them. Child labour and sex trafficking are both associated with the same societal stigma: the lack of education and social awareness. This makes the Indian subcontinent one of the poorest countries in the world; women and children, the weakest members of Indian society, suffer most.[1] The root cause of child labour is extreme poverty, and the main reason for poverty are unemployment, a lack of resources for the upliftment of the social order, which includes hierarchy, caste system, and untouchability, marginal differences between deserving and non-deserving classes, and government policies that fail to address these issues. In economics, humans are viewed as a resource, but child labour is detrimental to the economy. The factors that nourish the population as a resource are critical to adding up for a situation to be considered a success. Individual development (personal), career development (professional), and organizational development are the three main components of human resource development (HRD). And none of these is possible without a good education. The possibility of these essential human resource advancements is jeopardized by child labour. As a result, the nation must seek to provide education to all people, regardless of their social backgrounds, to address issues like child labour. This paper aims to provide an analytical perspective on the causes of child labour and how education is a necessary component of the process of attaining the objective. The researcher has discussed the Right to Education Act of 2009, as well as other government-enacted legislation aimed at ensuring that everyone has access to education, as well as the procedures for dealing with this atrocious crime. The method for ending an unethical activity differs from country to country, as it is also dependent on the stage of development for a large group of people. In this work, the researcher has focused her research on India and its approach to eradicating child labour, in a modular way.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The research paper is mainly based on secondary data that may be found on the internet. And it is based on different official government websites for data analysis as well as other official websites that are well-known for working in the field of child development around the world. The study is also based on a variety of media publications, official newsletters, books on child labour and education, census reports, and other sources. In addition to the numerous news pieces available on the internet.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Myron Weiner’s article, Child Labour in India: Putting Compulsory Primary Education on the Political Agenda, is a well-researched piece that covers all of the essential features of Indian society and their challenges in dealing with them. The Economic and Political Weekly in Mumbai published the piece. (The journal, as it is well called, plays a pivotal part in independent India’s intellectual history.) The article discusses all of India’s challenges in dealing with child labour, as well as factors that make it impossible, such as caste and class divisions. The impediments to the formation of a national push for mass education by those who have risen to the top. It emphasises the importance of education for the nation’s economic prosperity. He also offered a ray of optimism by pointing out how the middle class will be able to see the value of education following a period of rapid economic expansion. The essay emphasises the importance of media, researchers, and the knowledge they spread, as well as the backing of investors, educators, social activists, and trade unions, as well as international aid agencies, in getting the government to reconsider how it treats disadvantaged children. The article displays a variety of statical data to back up its claims and assertive ideas as solutions.
Another piece of literature that reviews the rapidly-expanding literature on the relationship between child labour, education, and health is Peter Dorman’s Child Labour, Education, and Health: A Review of the Literature, published by the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC). The review focuses on a variety of the world’s poorest nations and most vulnerable members of society. By cross-exanimating and explaining the terms education, child labour, and education, it proposes all scientific solutions to deal with child labour. There are various ways in which it links to one another. The article discusses all of the science around the relationship between education, work, education and work altogether, child labour, child labour and health, and so on. The review is based on a large amount of data and statistics, as well as social and psychosocial results. The report discusses all of the socioeconomic factors and makes recommendations for future work that will have a significant impact.
CONSTITUTIONAL SAFEGUARDS
- The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act or Right to Education Act (RTE), is an Act of the Parliament of India enacted on 4 August 2009, which describes the modalities of the importance of free and compulsory education for children between 6 and 14 in India under Article 21A of the Indian Constitution. India became one of 135 countries to make education a fundamental right of every child when the Act came into force on 1 April 2010. The Act makes education a fundamental right of every child between the ages of 6 and 14 and specifies minimum norms in elementary schools. It requires all private schools to reserve 25% of seats for children (to be reimbursed by the state as part of the public-private partnership plan). Kids are admitted into private schools based on economic status or caste-based reservations. It also prohibits all unrecognized schools from practise and makes provisions for no donation or capitation fees and no interview of the child or parent for admission. The Act also provides that no child shall be held back, expelled, or required to pass a board examination until the completion of elementary education. There is also a provision for special training of school drop-outs to bring them up to par with students of the same age.[2]
- The Right to Education of persons with disabilities until 18 years of age is laid down under separate legislation – the Persons with Disabilities Act. A number of other provisions regarding improvement of school infrastructure, teacher-student ratio and faculty are made in the Act.
Education in the Indian constitution is a concurrent issue and both centres and states can legislate on the issue. The Act lays down specific responsibilities for the Centre, state and local bodies for its implementation. The states have been clamouring that they lack the financial capacity to deliver the education of appropriate standard in all the schools needed for universal education. Thus, it was clear that the central government (which collects most of the revenue) will be required to subsidize the states.
Constitutional Provisions for Child Upliftment
- Article 24: Prohibition of employment of children in factories, etc.
No child below the age of fourteen years shall be employed in work in any factory or mine or engaged in any other hazardous employment.
- · Article 39: The State shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing
(e) that the health and strength of workers, men and women, and the tender age of children are not abused and that citizens are not forced by economic necessity to enter avocations unsuited to their age or strength.
- Article 15(3) in The Constitution of India 1949
(3) Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any special provision for women and children
- Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986:
It prohibits the employment of children in certain hazardous occupations and regulates the conditions of work of children in certain other employments where they are not prohibited from working. It prescribes a procedure to decide modifications to schedule to banned occupations or processes. It also brings about uniformity in the definition of “child” in related laws.
- The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016 suffers from several flaws.[3]
Since independence, India has enacted a number of legislations concerning child labour. Children under the age of 14 are not allowed to work in factories, mines, or other hazardous jobs, according to Article 24 of the Constitution. Articles 21A and 45 promise that all children aged 6 to 14 would receive a free and obligatory education. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act was passed in India in 2009. (RTE). However, the new law’s modifications make implementing the RTE nearly hard. Its provisions impose such a financial strain on low-caste households that, rather than supporting education, the Act actually increases the likelihood of dropouts. And parents, fearful of the hefty fines that may be imposed if their children are employed, are more likely to create a situation where parents are prepared to lie about their child’s attendance.
The law requires a firm approach to execution; forcing a majority of people to comply without first explaining the importance of the law and its necessity might backfire in a variety of ways, making it much more difficult to combat the issue.
- Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Rules, 2017.
Makes a number of amendments to the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 (61 of 1986), including through the amendment of the title to Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 (61 of 1986). Deals with, inter alia, responsibilities of Central Government concerning the prohibition of child labour (section 2A) regulating circumstances when a child can help his family without affecting their education (section 2B) and children who work as artists (section 2C).[4]
The two ILO Conventions on child labour are Convention No.138 on Minimum Age and Convention No. 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour. These Conventions are “fundamental” Conventions. This means that, under the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, all ILO member States have an obligation to respect, promote and realize the abolition of child labour, even if they have not ratified the Conventions in question. [5]
There are numerous more legislative provisions prohibiting and regulating child labour, as well as national policies, and governments around the world have been attempting to eliminate child labour. UNICEF provides humanitarian and developmental aid to children all around the world, attributable to ILO conventions and collaboration with countries all over the world as well. It’s almost as if all of the countries are fighting the same war but from different perspectives.
According to the graph above, the number of child labourers in Asia is the second highest, which may seem alarming, but if we look closely at the graph, we can see that the numbers are lower in Western and Arab countries than in Asia and Africa. Child labour has been used for millennia all around the world, but some governments deal with it more consciously than others. Apparently, the government is not solely to blame for all of the advancements; a country also requires the assistance of ordinary citizens, who must be informed of all areas of human resource development. People should understand the importance of education and how it is the only approach to personal and national development. Other countries should learn how they are dealing with this problem, with a special emphasis on the fact that these are countries with the highest literacy rates and the highest percentage of people with good educational qualifications, allowing for open minds and a strong understanding of human rights.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights makes clear that every child has the right to free basic education so that poverty and lack of money should not be a barrier to schooling. In many developing countries, over the last several, decades, governments have announced the abolition of school fees and as a result, they have seen impressive increases in the number of children going to school.[6] For education, developing countries cannot rely only on their own resources; more foreign aid is required. According to the Global Partnership for Education, just 20% of education aid flows to low-income nations (GPE). In impoverished countries, however, 13 years of schooling costs an average of $1.25 per day per child.
IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION
Joyce Irvine vs. the federal government
Joyce Irvine is the principal at an elementary school in Vermont where 97 per cent of the students live in poverty. Many of them are refugees from other countries. Ms Irvine was removed because the Burlington School District wanted to qualify for up to $3 million in federal stimulus money for its dozen schools. And under the Obama administration rules, for a district to qualify, schools with very low-test scores, like Wheeler, must do one of the following: close down; be replaced by a charter (Vermont does not have charters); remove the principal and half the staff; or remove the principal and transform the school. And since Ms Irvine had already “worked tirelessly,” as her evaluation said, to “successfully” transform the school last fall to an arts magnet, even she understood her removal was the least disruptive option.
As I quote “Joyce Irvine versus millions, “You can buy a lot of help for children with that money.” That sentence has the potential to be as accurate as it is. Joyce Irvine’s narrative is quite depressing in terms of politics and administration. But it also serves as an inspiration to emphasise the need for education, particularly for refugee children and the extremely poor, as well as for children around the world. There are currently over 400,000 children in foster care in the United States, according to data. They range in age from infancy to twenty-one years of age. Foster care is for children and teens who have been mistreated, neglected, or abandoned by their parents or guardians. What a powerful strategy to cope with the country’s future development. We recognise that as a society, we must improve our methods for dealing with the development of our future generations, particularly children, who are the country’s future. Several aspects of development are going well, and we should be proud of that, but there are a few that require a little more attention than others. We should also work on all aspects of the development for holistic development. Child labour and abuse, as well as rising statistics over time, do not reflect well on our society. India is proud of everything from its history to its culture. And as American author and pastor, Rick Warren rightly said: “We are products of the past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.” We may be proud of our history, but we must also strive to make our future success.
Education is a lifelong process. It begins the day we are born and ends the day we die. It is found in every society and comes in many forms, ranging from the “school of hard knocks,” or learning by experience, to formal institutional learning—from post-industrial to nonindustrial communities, from rural to urban settings, and from youth to older learners.[7]
Education is important in the creation of any democratic society. As Franklin D. Roosevelt says, “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.” People need a good education if they want a good democracy.[8]
- Education has the power to help societies, and the world in general, change for the better. According to Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. Malcolm X says: “Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” Education is a powerful tool that can be used to make the world a better place to live in.
- Education reduces violence and crime in societies. Teaching people to read has been shown to prevent people from engaging in crime. In fact, the Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention and Treatment is a charity group that uses education to combat violence and crime.
- Education creates hope for the future. Giving people hope that they can improve their lot in life is one of the more powerful effects education has on society. John F. Kennedy best expressed the power of a good education when he said: “Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.” JFK’s words about America apply to every society on Earth.
Asia that it will take a major infusion of resources and political leadership to catch up. Deep class/caste divisions have been barriers to the development of a national drive for mass education by those who have made it to the upper strata. As the economy opens and employment opportunities grow with the expansion of the country’s consumer industries, the governing middle class may recognise that the country needs a more literate population and therefore must invest in its children. But it will take a major coalition of locally-based groups, the active participation of the media, the contribution of researchers and the information they disseminate, the support of investors, educators, social activists trade unions and international donor agencies to get India to address the way it treats the children of the poor.[9] Valuable research is being to accumulate in some of the more visible domains of child labour, like street work and small workshops, but perhaps the highest priority should be given to agriculture, which accounts for about 70% of all child labour worldwide. The broad evidence suggests that children are steered into this work by family circumstances, not its suitability for health and subsequent development. Moreover, the literature, while sparse, does not at this time point to any particular health advantage associated with unpaid agricultural work or agricultural work within the household. It appears that the main risk factors for serious injury in developed countries, tractors and similar equipment, are not operative in most developing country contexts, but other risk factors, such as work with large animals, are more likely to be shared. It is also possible that pesticide exposure might be higher in the developing world, for which the long-term health outcomes would be severe, albeit more resistant to measurement.[10]
SUGGESTIONS & CONCLUSION
Poverty, child labour, and unemployment may be caused by a variety of factors. For all we know, education is not just a solution, but it is also the most important element in the formula, and without it, we cannot even begin to consider the success segment. Instead, we should take a step forward and raise awareness of the importance of education. About how we are born with equality, it is only through education that we learn the value of our own rights and have a greater understanding of our duties and obligations. Millions of people who work as labourers or who are forced to work do not realise, they have the same rights as their employers. There is only one constitution that controls all citizens of the country. In the eyes of the law, no one is exceptional. We may agree that there are various methods to get knowledge, but education gives us more authority. And no country could be as successful as one in which the majority of its citizens are empowered with self-development and self-awareness. We have not yet found a perfect method to end child labour forever, because even though we have a solution in our hands, it still exists. When the government implement a law for the poor, the people don’t see the connection, and they don’t believe that the government understand what they’re going through and what are their struggles. As a result, if the government enacts a policy requiring parents to send their children to school or face fines, parents will be forced to comply. They believe they are governed by a powerful group with competing interests, so they often lie about sending their children to school in many cases just to avoid the fine. We must foster mutual understanding between the giver and the receiver, in which both sides are working toward the same goal, as well as social development through education. Absolutely, education is the best approach to deal with child labour. As a result, the government must educate children to avoid child labour. Government should bring forward to help parents see the value of education in their own distinct ways. Parents should understand that they are not obligated to teach their children, but that they must do it for their own benefit. Education helps generations grow, and while growth may not be as rapid as we would want, it is a continuing process and the most reliable one. A law is only useful if it is carried out properly. We should increase the quality of implementation rather than the way the government lays out all of the policies for people. After each law is passed, the government should examine its execution and implementation to see how far it has progressed. That is how we will be able to notice the truth of facts as well as the proper solution to the situation.
SHRUTI
CHANAKYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, BA LLB (HONS)
YEAR: 2ND, SEM: 4TH
BATCH: 2020-2025
[1] SOS children villages Canada, A loving home for every child, poverty in India: facts and figures on the daily struggle for survivalhttps://www.soschildrensvillages.ca/news/poverty-in-india-602
[2] Righttoeducation.in, Home >>about https://righttoeducation.in/know-your-rte/about
[3] The Hindu, column, a law that allows child labour, (Aug 10, 2016) https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/A-law-that-allows-child-labour/article14560563.ece
[4] An international labour organization, Database of national labour, social security and related human rights legislation, India> https://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/natlex4.detail?p_lang=en&p_isn=110006
[5] An international labour organization, ILO home>about the ILO, ILO Conventions on child labour https://www.ilo.org/ipec/facts/ILOconventionsonchildlabour/lang–en/index.htm
[6] Global citizen, defeat poverty, 10 barriers to education that children living in poverty face
from overcrowded classrooms to poor nutrition, (Aug 13, 2019) https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/10-barriers-to-education-around-the-world-2/
[7] [EIGHTH EDITION] [Jeanne H. Ballantine, Floyd M. Hammack, Jenny Stuber], [ The sociology of Education, A Systematic Analysis] [16] [(Eighth edition published 2017 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN]
[8]The Borgan project, Blog, Latest news, the top 10 effects education has on society, (May 7, 2018) https://borgenproject.org/effects-education-has-on-society/
[9] Weiner, M. (1996). Child Labour in India: Putting Compulsory Primary Education on the Political Agenda. Economic and Political Weekly, 31(45/46), 3007–3014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4404768
[10] {article,author {Dorman, Peter},year {2008},month {01},pages {46},title {Child labour, education and health: A review of the literature}}