Abstract
Today when world is gradually moving towards Education For All, there is presence of a strong segment of deprived children who have not seen even a proper child hood and are busy earning their livelihood. They do not form part of the mainstream of education - informal or formal process. In India there are 11.29 million such children who work as child labour in hazardous and non-hazardous occupations and have missed the opportunity to learn and play like other children. Child labour is a threat to child's right and it can be gradually eliminated by bringing children in education fold. There are number of such interventions being applied in India. This paper has tried to focus on one of such efforts being carried out under National Child Labour Project.
In September 1995, a crucial high powered, national workshop was held in New Delhi on Government of India's initiative to assess the existing child labour position and to plan future intervention and strategy. Among several suggestions and recommendations the thrust was on bringing the child labour within the education ambit like in all child labour endemic districts, primary education must be made compulsory and special inputs must be provided to make education interesting and meaningful. In order to initiate the process, it was decided to establish Child labour rehabilitation special schools in all child labour endemic districts.
The purpose of the paper is to examine the special schools as an viable intervention for spread of education in a neglected pocket of the underdeveloped society where the situation is alarming and needs urgent and forceful mobilisation of resources for mass sensitisation and need for education. Has the initiative been successful? The paper will try to examine this by focussing on a special school project in Nalanda District in Bihar state.
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