Educating India's child labourers

Girls at a village school in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh gather for a morning assembly seeking relief from the heat and humidity of the summer. After listening to a reading from that day's newspaper, the girls raise their fists in the air and chant slogans proclaiming their right to an education and the equality of girls. It is a scene that puts into perspective the UN's Millennium Development Goals, which set out eight ambitious targets to halve global poverty by 2015. World leaders will review the goals during their three-day summit in New York that starts on Wednesday. Here in India, where 53% of children drop out before finishing seventh grade - 12-13 years old - a goal of universal primary education looks unlikely. In the Andhra Pradesh school, the proclamation of education rights may seem a strange ritual for the start of a day, but this is not a regular school and these are not regular students. All 200 girls here are former child labourers, who were either withdrawn from primary school, or never went in the first place. The residential camp is run by an Indian charity, the MV Foundation, and is designed to rehabilitate its charges to the rigours of school life. When the girls are ready, usually after spending six months or so at the camp, they will be placed back into regular schools and hopefully go on to finish at least primary level. They are fortunate to have such an opportunity. Child labour is a massive problem in India and in Andhra Pradesh in particular. The government says it is trying to combat the high attrition rates.More than half the children in this state drop out of school before finishing seventh grade. Some government initiatives such as free books for primary schoolchildren, a free mid-day meal and the installation of toilets have gone someway to improving school attendance. But an MV Foundation official, Shanta Sinha, says there is a great difference between what the government says it is doing and what is happening on the ground. "The resources are not going where they should. There aren't enough teachers and they're under-qualified. In one school there are 300 students and only two teachers. The state government estimates that nearly 400,000 children of primary age are not regularly attending school, but the MV Foundation disputes this figure, estimating closer to four million are not regularly in classes. More

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