EDUCATION FOR POOR CHILDREN IN INDIA

Children are the future of a nation. For an emerging and developing country like    India, development of underprivileged children holds the key to the progress of the nation itself.

• Education for underprivileged Children is the key whether we are addressing healthcare, poverty, population control, unemployment or human rights issues.

• The educational initiatives for underprivileged children include 

1. Crèche [0-3 yrs]
2. Pre-school [3-6 yrs], 
3. Non Formal Education [6-14 yrs non-school going], 
4. Remedial Education [6-14 yrs school going], 
5. Bridge Course [14-18 yrs drop-outs], 
6. Functional Literacy [18-45 yrs women] and Family Life Education for adolescent girls.

• These projects support more than 100 grassroots initiatives working for the education of very poor and underprivileged children in various states of country like Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Assam, Manipur, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Chandigarh, Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh etC. 

What happens when a country of the size of India has over 3 million children living on the streets? Or has over 150 million children working as bonded labourers? Or one out of every six girl child does not live to see her 15th birthday? What happens when despite having a national policy for compulsory primary education, only 50% of children have access to education? The statement "Children are the future of the nation" stops making sense, then! In fact, it sounds like an ominous prophecy. For how can we explain that even after 60 years of independence, half of India's children are illiterate? Despite identifying primary education as a key thrust area and possessing one of the largest networks of schools in the world?

Clearly, we have a lot to answer for. And as concerned citizens do something about it; something meaningful, something concrete, something urgently. No more do we have the luxury of blaming the system or postponing our actions. The time to take collective as well as individual responsibility to remedy the present situation is here. Right now! And also we need many more people to cater to the vast (increasing) number of children in our country's population.

THIS CONDITION SHOULD BE CHANGED  TO......