Helping kids left out to get back to school

NEW DELHI: Although she’s the teacher, Jyotsana isn’t the only one with an income in her class. Children attending the special training centre (STC) in Rana Pratap Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya, Rithala, were out-of-school and working till April, 2016. A sizeable section of them still works in the evenings and contribute towards the family’s “rozi-roti.” Jyotsana is trying to get this lot of 33 kids – 15 girls and 18 boys aged 7-10 – ready for regular school by the end of this academic year.
At present, Delhi has 166 STCs to run bridge courses for out-of-school children (OOSC) -- 122 in government schools. By August 2016, they’d collectively enrolled about 6,000 – less than a tenth of the total number of OOSC the Directorate of Education (DoE) now estimates there are in Delhi. Preliminary findings in a ward-level headcount indicate their number could even be a lakh. The DoE intends to ask each school – municipal and government -- to start one STC, raising their number to over 2,500.
Delhi’s Census 2011 figures show that 64.93% OOSC aged 7-14 were “non-workers.” But nearly everyone in Jyotsana’s class picked waste before joining; many – 11 of 28 kids present on Thursday -- still do. “We go in the evening now,” says Tufan, 10. Lucy and Khushboo add that they make about Rs 100 each. Even the ones not stepping out of home, aren’t free to be just kids. Mehboob, 10, is frequently kept at home by his parents – a rickshaw-puller and a domestic help – to mind his two-year-old brother. Till the STC happened, “ghar sambhalna (managing home)” was Rupali’s full-time job.

With so many responsibilities claiming their time, retention is a challenge. Jyotsana makes “home-visits” to coax kids out. There’s attrition due to migration. “Numbers usually reduce. Last year, about 60%-70% of the class was mainstreamed,” says Manju Kochhar, principal, RP-SKV.
The Right to Education Act 2009 provides for STCs; the Delhi Rules require a programme to run for a minimum of three months to two years. A few in every batch become class-ready and are mainstreamed before the year is up. “About 10 in a batch,” says Jyotsana. Most are 7-year-olds, less behind their peers than older OOSC. The course, designed by the State Council for Education Research and Training (SCERT), covers mathematics, Hindi, English and EVS.
In addition to handling the deficit in academic achievement, teachers also ensure the school culture is understood – not leaving the classroom randomly, sitting in order, coming in uniform. Parents, mostly unschooled, need as much priming. Jyotsana’s lot has settled in; some are even ambitious. Raja hopes to be a doctor; a few, engineers. But coming from areas where theft is common and residents generally vulnerable, most girls and boys want to be in the police.
Kochhar had initially been reluctant to set up a STC. “I have about 3,600 students and space is limited,” she says, “We managed one room from the evening-shift. Even that hasn’t been fully cleared.”
Space, DoE officials concede, is a problem. “Some schools seat over 100 kids in a room,” says E Raja Babu, state project director, SSA, “Allocating a room for STC will be difficult.”
The government is considering partnering with more NGOs. “The NGO-run ones aren’t functioning well because most funds go into paying for utilities,” explains Babu, “We may increase allocations for each component and also change some of the conditions for running.”