In the first phase of a recent survey,volunteers of the National Service Scheme (NSS) found that the city has 716 child labourers. Working closely with NGOs,the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and parents,the volunteers have been able get 290 of these children admitted to various civic schools. The NSS,which comes under the University of Pune (UoP),conducted the survey with the aim of providing information to the government about the number of such children. The survey also aims to aid the implementation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act. The NSS is carrying out this survey in association with Yashada,Sarva Shikhsa Abhiyaan (SSA) and the PMC education board. Looking at its initial success,however,the NSS head is planning to make it a regular feature at the university where volunteers will be able to carry out the survey from the start of their academic year. Pointing out the need for such a survey,Shakera Inamdar,NSS programme coordinator,said,Thousands of people migrate to the city every year. However,there is no account of their children. Most of them are sent to work. We are planning not to limit the initiative only to a survey. Many of the children that we tracked are now getting direct admissions to schools. The difficult part is to ensure that they do not drop out of schools and go back to their jobs. Our volunteers are in touch with the students and their parents,trying to counsel them about the importance of education. In the first phase,students from eight colleges participated in the initiative. The survey covered areas like Kondwa,Warje,Wakad and Wadarwadi. As the first phase was carried out in December last year,we were not able to rope in all our students because they were preparing for exams. From the coming academic year,we plan to conduct regular surveys from the very start for better results, added Inamdar. Anand Katikar,programme coordinator from Fergusson College,said the main reason these children were out of school was financial problems. Sixteen of our students participated in the survey and we tracked about 143 children from various slums and at traffic signals. The mind-set of parents,who at times look at their children as another earning head for the family,needs to change, said Katikar. While Inamdar is happy with the initial results,Subhash Swami,project officer,SSA feels that a lot more needs to be done. There is a need for more students to get involved. We need to get better results. There are close to 22,000 NSS volunteers at the UoP. If all the students are made part of the project,the result can be outstanding, said Swami.
