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 Crèche [0-3 yrs], Pre-school [3-6 yrs], Non Formal Education [6-14 yrs non-school going], Remedial Education [6-14 yrs school going], Bridge Course [14-18 yrs drop-outs], 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 Various education programmes launched by Smile are: Mission Education, Smile Twin e-Learning Projects, Swabhiman, Action for Change, and You Can Make A Difference. Numerous projects under Smile’s educational programmes cover poor children under difficult circumstances such as child labour, children of poorest of the parents, underprivileged children inflicted and affected with HIV/AIDS, runaway and street children, children with rare disability [Autism, Deaf & Dumb, Blind, and Spastic etc.], disaster struck children and slum children etc. Smile Foundation, a national level development organization, has a network of more than 100 children welfare projects and a bandwidth of more s many NGOs and non-profits organisations across India.   Case Study: Education Transforming Lives of Needy Children >   Rajbeer : A Story of Education leading to Living with Dignity: Click Here   Where There is a Will, There is a Way - Story of Suryakanti: Click Here   Govind Jaiswal – An Example of Empowerment through Education: Click Here Kindly click here to know about Child Rights preambles & articles, Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as its relevance in India. Statistics on Status of Child Education in India The litercay ratio of India is 65.38% with male literacy at 75.85% and female literacy at 54.16% Of the 193 million Children in the age group 6 to 14 years, 8.1 million children are out of school as of Sept 2004 as per Government statistics. Net primary enrolment ratio in 2001/02 : 83 7% Children reaching grade 5 in 2000/01 : 59 8 % Ministry of Finance / Press Information Bureau Data Number of Primary Schools in India : 0.664 million (2001-02) Number Upper Primary Schools in India : 0.219 million Population in the age group of 6-14 years : 193 Million Secondary and Senior Secondary Schools : 0.133 million; Enrollment : 30.5 million Findings from the Survey – ‘Social infrastructure like education is as important as physical infrastructure, not only for sustaining high growth but also for enhancing welfare. The root of poverty often lies in illiteracy.’ Census of India 1991 State with highest literacy rate : Kerala (89.8) State with lowest literacy rate : Bihar (38.5) District with highest literacy rate : Kottayam, Kerala (95.7) District with lowest literacy rate : Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh (19.0) Facts on Education Less than half of India's children between the age 6 and 14 go to school. A little over one-third of all children who enroll in grade one reach grade eight. At least 35 million children aged 6 - 14 years do not attend school. 53% of girls in the age group of 5 to 9 years are illiterate. In India, only 53% of habitation has a primary school. In India, only 20% of habitation has a secondary school. On an average an upper primary school is 3 km away in 22% of areas under habitations. In nearly 60% of schools, there are less than two teachers to teach Classes I to V. On an average, there are less than three teachers per primary school. They have to manage classes from I to V every day. High cost of private education and need to work to support their families and little interest in studies are the reasons given by 3 in every four drop-outs as the reason they leave. Dropout rates increase alarmingly in class III to V, its 50% for boys, 58% for girls. 1 in 40, primary school in India is conducted in open spaces or tents. In Andhra Pradesh (South India), 52 upper primary schools were operating without a building in 2002, while in 1993, there were none. In Maharashtra (West India), there were 10 schools operating without a building in 1993, this has climbed to 33 in 2002. More than 50 per cent of girls fail to enroll in school; those that do are likely to drop out by the age of 12. 50% of Indian children aged 6-18 do not go to school Source: 7th All India Education Survey, 2002     Our Children, the children in India, for whom education is a privilege. For a photo gallery of a few of    our children learning to have a Smile on their faces, please.. .

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Economic Crisis Lisa Bryant | Paris The report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, outlines a vicious circle.  Rising poverty and malnutrition - one of the spinoffs of the global economic crisis - has prevented many children from attending school.  But that's only part of the problem, says Samer Al-Samarrai, one of the study's authors. "Even when they're in school, their ability to concentrate and actively participate in lessons - the financial crisis has had a really big impact on that," said Samer Al-Samarrai. "But second of all, the crisis has really put national education budgets under substantial pressure." The United Nations says 72 million children do not attend school.  Universal primary education by 2015  only five years from now - is one of the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals. During the past decade, progress has been made.  About 33 million more children now attend school than in 1999.  And many more children now complete primary school. Some of the biggest successes have been in Sub-Saharan Africa.  But the region's children might be among the most affected by the economic downturn.

The UNESCO report says international aid for education needs to be reformed.  It calls for donors to commit billions more dollars in education aid to meet the U.N. goal of education-for-all.  The report also urges the United Nations to host a donors' conference this year to address the education financing shortfall.

"If levels of aid to education drop, this is likely to set back progress for a whole generation of children," he said. "And education is an investment in the future."