Inclusion of Children from Rural and Slum areas in Education
Inclusion in Education is an approach which covers up all children under the umbrella of education. Children from rural and slum areas can be included through-
1. Ensuring the education of these children in the neighbourhood schools.
2. Organisation and establishment of community based groups that have link within such communities and help in identifying such excluded children.
3. Engagement of NGO‘s to identify such children and encourage to back to schools.
4. Establishment of hostels or residential schools in adequate numbers in such areas.
5. Encouragement of representation of children from such community in the school.
6. Provision for transportation to and fro schools for these children.
7. Recruitment of more number of teachers in the schools located in such areas,
8. Provisions of textbooks, uniforms for such children.
9. Community based monitoring of students attendance in the school.
10. Provision of inclusive sports, cultural programmes in the schools.
Inclusion in Education for Children from other Marginalised Groups
Marginalisation is a process whereby something or someone is pushed to the edge of a group and they are accorded lesser importance. It happens when a group is separated and activity excluded from the rest of the society. Social marginalisation or exclusion emerges at the individual or group level on four correlated dimensions-
1. Insufficient access to social right.
2. Material deprivation.
3. Limited social participation.
and 4. Lack of normative integration.
People who are marginalised are very likely to be subject to multiple layers of discrimination, that is why, they belong to more than one marginalised group. They are also called valunerable group.
Along with Schedule Caste (SC), Schedule Tribe (ST), Minorities, there are some other marginalised groups of children who are to be included in education to help them to access to the educational facilities. They are-
a. Migrant Children
The children of the parents working in brick kilns, agriculture, sugarcane harvesting, construction, stone quarrying, salt pans etc. suffer from the problem of migration which adversely affects their education. Inclusion in education for these children aims at bringing them to the regular schools in the place where they stay or to where they seasonally migrate.
These children can be brought to the regular school with an inclusive approach by-
i. Establishment of seasonal hostels or residential capms to retain children in the school during the period of migration.
ii. Providing transportation facility to and from the school in the vicnity of the worksite.
iii. Establishment schools in the worksite or at the location where migrant families are engaged in work.
iv. Providing migration card to enable continuity in their education before, during and after migration.
v. Engaging NGO’s to identify the migrants children.
vi. Providing appropriate textbooks, uniforms to such children.
vii. Appointing trained teachers who can teach the children in the language in which they have been receiving education in various locations.
b. Children affected by HIV/AIDS
We found many children who are affected by the HIV and AIDS. Such children are excluded among excluded. HIV protection and prevention programme can tackle the issue suffering from such children in ensuring their rights within society. This includes the right to education, contraception, involvement in HIV programme, safety from violence, gender equality and a lack of stigma.
c. Street Children
Another excluded group of children are the street children. Poverty and family background have always been associated with street children but it is true that neither all poor children take to the street, nor all street children are orphans or abandoned. Most of the families of street children have experienced persistent discrimination, poverty and social exclusion within societies where inequalities are high and growing. They are most excluded children from education.
d. Abused Children
One another group of marginalised children is the group of abused children who are generally excluded. Child abuse and neglect occurs in a range of situation for a range of reasons. Children may suffer from different forms of abuse, like, emotional, physical, sexual and family violence. Among these, exual abuse have always been adversely affecting the children. The children suffering from such forms of abuses are termed as abused children.
e. Child Labourers
Generally, child labour which is very significant issue of present day context refers to employment of children in any work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their abilty to attend regular school and that is mentally, physically, socially and morally dangerous and harmful. Vast majority of child labourers are found in rural setting and informal urban economy, children are predominantly employed by their parents, or other members of the family or sometimes by factories.
Along with these, children working as domestic help, children in conflict with law, children affected by natural calamities, children without adult protection, children in areas affected by civil strife, child beggers, are the examples of some marginalised children or children from marginalised groups which are in want of interventions like inclusive education. Inclusion in education, as an approach covers all these children in its ‘umbrella’ which is detected with the ‘unity’ and ‘equality’.
Children from Marginalised Groups can be included in Education by-
1. Making school safe zones by providing adequate security and emotional support to enable such children to come to school and continue their education undistributed.
2. Making alternative educational arrangement for such affected children to continue their education.
3. Making arrangement of residential schooling facilities for such children.
4. Making arrangement of transportation to safe schools to children from affected areas.
5. Organising special negotiations with leaders in the areas to ensure that schools are allowed to function uninterrupted for such children.
6. Encouraging collaboration with Govt. agencies, NGO’s and community for ensuring educational provisions for such children.
7. Forming support groups and safety nets for such children specially for homeless children, children with domestic help etc..
8. Building a congenial environment inside and outside the school for such children.
9. Introduction of right based and inclusive student assessment.
10. Establishment of resources to provide specialist support for such children.
