In a major exercise to assess the education status of the estimated 15 million child population of Tamil Nadu, 200 child welfare NGOs (non-government organisations) working in the state have jointly published a consolidated report titled Tamil Nadu NGO Report on Realisation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (2003-2007) — A Situational Analysis, together with a supplementary Voices of Children report based on interviews with children. Coordinated, edited and compiled by Chennai-based Indian Council for Child Welfare (ICCW), the report covers 11 child-related subjects, including education, health, child protection, child labour, discrimination and disability.
Ratified by India in 1992, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) makes it obligatory on the part of member signatory countries to report periodically on the progress made in the implementation of the convention. A progress report required to be submitted every quinquennium by all member signatory nations, is due later this year from India and is being compiled with inputs from state governments. Meanwhile the alternate Tamil Nadu NGO Report on implementation of UNCRC provisions will also be presented to the UNCRC. It will ensure that the convention doesn’t accept the anticipated whitewash report of the government of India as the final word.
Which is just as well because shocking tales of abuse of children’s rights are reported in Voices of Children, compiled after a two-day seminar held in Chennai last year and attended by 80 children enrolled in government, aided, panchayat, municipality and private urban and rural schools in 30 districts of Tamil Nadu. Among them are disturbing revelations by an aided school child that use of toilets in her school is restricted to teachers; that the school library is used by teachers to sleep in, and that teachers often ask village children to teach English to whole classes. Another child relates that the school bus driver took her to a deserted site, raped her and then took her to a nearby temple to ‘marry’ her. The traumatised girl student filed an FIR (first information report) in her local police station but to no avail.
The Tamil Nadu NGO Report, which acknowledges that secondary school completion percentages in the state are significantly higher than the national average, doesn’t pull its punches and highlights the failure of the state government to ensure welfare of child labour, trafficked, street and orphaned children, especially disabled and adolescent girls who tend to suffer gross violation of their rights. According to the 124-page report, of 52,303 government-run schools in the state, 1,663 don’t provide drinking water, 12,907 are without electricity, 13,808 are without toilets and 17,035 lack separate toilets for girl students.
Though the GERs (gross enrollment ratios) of government primaries is 99 percent, the report reveals that primary education completion is low with 13.45 percent (8.3 lakh) of enrolled children dropping out before reaching class V, and 4.1 lakh (11.43 percent) before completing class VII. The most disquieting factor according to the report, is the poor learning outcomes of government primaries — only 35 percent of children in class V can read Tamil fluently, a mere 23 percent of children in classes III-V can identify the full alphabet and only 50 percent of class V children can manage simple two digit subtraction. Another alarming disclosure: 1,000,000 working children in Tamil Nadu (pop.62.1 million), of whom 750,000 are girls.
Comments Andal Damodaran, convener of ICCW, which has published the Tamil Nadu NGO Report and Voices of Children: “Class-caste divisions, gender bias, socio-economic and geo-cultural circumstances combined with poverty and economic insecurity of adults, keep large sections of children beyond the reach of government redressal programmes and budgetary interventions. Delivery systems have to be strengthened to ensure benefits reach children and effective implementation of child rights requires convergence of the government, NGOs, families, community stake holders and civil society.”
Given the national malaise of government-provided primary education, that’s a tall order indeed.
Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)