Introduction

Millions of children across India are deprived of the right to education. The result: India has the world’s largest number of children who are unable to accesseducation. The Constitution, more than half a century ago, had promised to ensure universal primary education within a decade. Today, 70 million children in the 6-14 years age group are either school dropouts or have never been enrolled in a school at all. Oxfam firmly believes that children have a right to a free basic education. Quality education can play a crucial role in reducing poverty and promoting gender equality. Our work on education combines programme-based development work with advocacy and campaigning.

Education for tribal girls in Jharkhand

Oxfam Trust is working to get more and more girlsinto school and to ensure that they receive good-quality education.In Chouparan Block of Hazaribagh district in Jharkhand none of the 2,144 children living in nearby tribal villages were going to school. Our program is to help educate underprivileged tribal girls by running two residential bridge schools. The curriculum includes lessons in reading and writing to yoga, handicrafts, cultural activities, environmental awareness and improving agriculture, health and hygiene. The duration of the program is one year. In its first year, 30 tribal girls were trained and most of them were enrolled in government schools. This year 90 tribal girls are being trained in the two residential bridge schools.

Case Study

Educating urban slum children

Within Oxfam Trust, it is recognized that the education of slum children in urban areas is adversely affected. Several factors such as poor economic and educational conditions conspire to deprive them of education. Slum children are engaged in either wage earning outside or working at home. Deprived of their basic needs they also lose their childhood in an attempt to help the family survive. Education is a distant dream for them.

The Oxfam supported Project Swati, run by the Rajiv and Neelu Kachwaha Trust, and Efrah recognize that educating these children will help in developing the skills they need to escape poverty and thus, avoid their exclusion from a range of opportunities available in towns.

Project Swati

Project Swati works with the slum children of Tigri and Kanak Durga in RK Puram and provides non formal education to about 200 children.

True Life Stories

Project Efrah

During a massive slum clearance drive in Delhi, thousands of slum dwellers were shifted to a new settlement called Madanpur Khaddar, a slum colony situated in the outskirts of the capital. These mass evictions caused major turmoil in the lives of over 8000 families, who were forced out of their homes and livelihoods and moved to this remote location. The people had no access to basic amenities like sanitation, electricity, potable water or schools. With the nearest government school some three kilometers away, many children were dropping out of school or had become non-starters as the distance is too far for them to travel easily. A local voluntary organization, Efrah, had begun running non-formal primary education centres in the resettlement colony. Oxfam partnered with them in a program to improve the quality of education offered. This initiative has so far enabled over 300 children to access quality informal education, giving them a foundation for rejoining the formal education system.

True Life Stories

Join the campaign for Education for All

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said: “More than 100 million children are being denied a basic human right—the right to an education…most of those missing out are girls.”

Join the campaign today to help every child access their right to an education.