By IPS Correspondents
CHITRAKOOT, INDIA, Oct 30 1995 (IPS)

Both Munna, 10, and his parents would like him to go to school. But if he stops working as a sweeper at the local landlord’s house, there will not be enough to feed him and his four younger siblings, his parents feel.

One of the biggest hurdles in overcoming rural illiteracy in South Asia is trying to convince parents that by putting their children in school instead of to work, families are not being deprived of their livelihood.

“It is essential that the children should be able to earn as they learn to break this cycle of poverty,” says Nanaji Deshmukh founder of the Delhi-based Deendayal Research Institute (DDRI), a non-governmental organisation with a number of anti-poverty projects throughout India.

“Children of 8 or 9 years already start earning,” says Deshmukh, “so the parents do not like them to remain at school. The percentage of dropouts is tremendous and illiteracy is growing by leaps and bounds.”

Deshmukh, a social activist and former politician, now in his eighties, has devised a system to integrate earning and learning in a number of development projects around the country.

In the last few years he has initiated several schemes where production centres are set up in the schools for children to learn skills like bamboo work and basket weaving.

These are then marketed by the Centres, bringing in a small income for the children, part of which goes towards paying for their education, relieving the burden of their parents, and part of which is saved in special children’s banks set up by the project.

“This is not job-oriented training which restricts the skills of the children,” says one project worker at the DDRI centre in Chitrakoot, a beautiful but impoverished area in India’s central Madhya Pradesh state.

The population consists of landless forest-dwellers, mostly indigenous tribespeople long neglected by the government. Illiteracy in some villages is as high as 90 per cent of the population.

“The idea of the earn as you learn programme is to make children as self-reliant as possible so that they can pursue a wider education,” says the project worker.

Similar projects set up by the DDRI in the Nagpur area of India’s Northern Uttar Pradesh state have set up children’s banks which allow five to 15 year olds to deposit as little as a few paise at a time as long as they don’t withdraw their savings for a year. The money earns interest at the rate of about 10 per cent a year.

Earnings from production activities are also banked in these children’s banks.

“At the end of the year the children withdraw enough money for exercise books, pens and text books so that they don’t have to turn to their parents for these things”, says Deshmukh. “Self reliance is developed right from childhood.”

Even provision of books and writing implements can be a major burden on parents, adding to the perception that schooling is an expensive luxury, he says.

Meanwhile the banks operate like commercial banks and use the children’s deposits to finance small industries in the area, contributing to the general development of the economy.

“The banks seek out those industries they think will be a good investment and give a good return on the money,” says Deshmukh who notes that small industries often have a hard time getting funds from the government-run banking system even if they are economically viable.

“We take the children to see these industries and show them how even their small amounts are helping their villages and country to prosper,” says Deshmukh. “This gives both children and village chiefs a source of pride.”

Such children’s banks have amassed almost 15,500 dollars in deposits from some 9,000 slum children aged between five and 15 years over just three years in Nagpur. This is a massive fortune in India in terms of the economic generation it produces.

Such schemes go a long way towards breaking down barriers among village chiefs against allowing children to stay in school.

A teacher at the three-year old Ramnath Ashramshala, a boarding school in Chitrakoot set up by DDRI for 200 children of impoverished forestdwellers explained: “At first it was not just

the parents but also the local landowners and village chiefs who were very much against allowing the children to go to school. Small children served as cheap errand boys, sweepers and so on.”

But now the parents and the village chiefs are keen to have as many children in school as possible, so much so that the school is now having to turn away applicants.

The scheme, if replicated with minor modifications across the subcontinent, could help bring many Munnas back to schoolrooms and dramatically improve abysmal literacy rates, local educationists say.

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents
CHITRAKOOT, INDIA, Oct 30 1995 (IPS)

Both Munna, 10, and his parents would like him to go to school. But if he stops working as a sweeper at the local landlord’s house, there will not be enough to feed him and his four younger siblings, his parents feel.

One of the biggest hurdles in overcoming rural illiteracy in South Asia is trying to convince parents that by putting their children in school instead of to work, families are not being deprived of their livelihood.

“It is essential that the children should be able to earn as they learn to break this cycle of poverty,” says Nanaji Deshmukh founder of the Delhi-based Deendayal Research Institute (DDRI), a non-governmental organisation with a number of anti-poverty projects throughout India.

“Children of 8 or 9 years already start earning,” says Deshmukh, “so the parents do not like them to remain at school. The percentage of dropouts is tremendous and illiteracy is growing by leaps and bounds.”

Deshmukh, a social activist and former politician, now in his eighties, has devised a system to integrate earning and learning in a number of development projects around the country.

In the last few years he has initiated several schemes where production centres are set up in the schools for children to learn skills like bamboo work and basket weaving.

These are then marketed by the Centres, bringing in a small income for the children, part of which goes towards paying for their education, relieving the burden of their parents, and part of which is saved in special children’s banks set up by the project.

“This is not job-oriented training which restricts the skills of the children,” says one project worker at the DDRI centre in Chitrakoot, a beautiful but impoverished area in India’s central Madhya Pradesh state.

The population consists of landless forest-dwellers, mostly indigenous tribespeople long neglected by the government. Illiteracy in some villages is as high as 90 per cent of the population.

“The idea of the earn as you learn programme is to make children as self-reliant as possible so that they can pursue a wider education,” says the project worker.

Similar projects set up by the DDRI in the Nagpur area of India’s Northern Uttar Pradesh state have set up children’s banks which allow five to 15 year olds to deposit as little as a few paise at a time as long as they don’t withdraw their savings for a year. The money earns interest at the rate of about 10 per cent a year.

Earnings from production activities are also banked in these children’s banks.

“At the end of the year the children withdraw enough money for exercise books, pens and text books so that they don’t have to turn to their parents for these things”, says Deshmukh. “Self reliance is developed right from childhood.”

Even provision of books and writing implements can be a major burden on parents, adding to the perception that schooling is an expensive luxury, he says.

Meanwhile the banks operate like commercial banks and use the children’s deposits to finance small industries in the area, contributing to the general development of the economy.

“The banks seek out those industries they think will be a good investment and give a good return on the money,” says Deshmukh who notes that small industries often have a hard time getting funds from the government-run banking system even if they are economically viable.

“We take the children to see these industries and show them how even their small amounts are helping their villages and country to prosper,” says Deshmukh. “This gives both children and village chiefs a source of pride.”

Such children’s banks have amassed almost 15,500 dollars in deposits from some 9,000 slum children aged between five and 15 years over just three years in Nagpur. This is a massive fortune in India in terms of the economic generation it produces.

Such schemes go a long way towards breaking down barriers among village chiefs against allowing children to stay in school.

A teacher at the three-year old Ramnath Ashramshala, a boarding school in Chitrakoot set up by DDRI for 200 children of impoverished forestdwellers explained: “At first it was not just

the parents but also the local landowners and village chiefs who were very much against allowing the children to go to school. Small children served as cheap errand boys, sweepers and so on.”

But now the parents and the village chiefs are keen to have as many children in school as possible, so much so that the school is now having to turn away applicants.

The scheme, if replicated with minor modifications across the subcontinent, could help bring many Munnas back to schoolrooms and dramatically improve abysmal literacy rates, local educationists say.

Excerpt: