I have always believed that the true wealth of any nation lies in its children and youth. Education serves as a crucial means by which this invaluable wealth can be enriched. Every child deserves a conducive environment to thrive and has the right to education. However, the malpractice of child labour deprives them of this right and has a detrimental impact on our children's lives.
To raise awareness about child labour's severe psychological and physical consequences, the World Day against Child Labour was launched by the International Labour Organisation. It brought together various Governments & other stakeholders and drew their attention to child labour's exploitative and abusive nature.
Over the years, various countries endeavoured together to inhibit the practice of child labour. But the unexpected advent of the Covid pandemic exacerbated the situation pushing more children into child labour. The pandemic has been responsible for devastating socio-economic impact across the globe.
The subsequent economic slowdown led to reduced incomes which had a massive impact on millions of families. It was seen that poor households found it unaffordable to send children back to schools and resorted to sending children to work to earn food and basic needs. While the world struggled to cope with these challenges, India also began to witness the fallouts of the pandemic.
However, the Indian Government was quick to take a proactive approach and ensure that our significant progress towards a child labour free society does not dwindle.
Our Honourable Prime Minister has always remained convinced that education is the way to secure a child’s future. He has said, ‘If there is education, there will be everything in life. Your homes can brighten up only if your children are educated”.
Under the astute guidance of these words, the Ministry of Education relentlessly worked day and night to develop accessible and affordable mechanisms for education. Efforts were made to abate the impact of the pandemic on the continuity of education, thereby ensuring that no child is pushed to the folds of child labour.
As the pandemic disrupted the physical classroom teaching and hampered the gains made in terms of enrolment, we launched PM e-VIDYA to provide multi-modal access to education. This benefitted nearly 25 crore school-going children. Under PM e-VIDYA, various initiatives such as the ‘One Nation-One Digital Platform’ DIKSHA, ‘One Class-One TV Channel’ programme of SWAYAMPRABHA, SWAYAM MOOCs, community radio and radio broadcasting were extensively used to make education accessible across the country. Along with this, our other initiatives, such as the Alternative Academic Calendar, PRAGYATA Guidelines, Digital Education-India Report, NISHTHA and Learning Enhancement Guidelines, ensured that no school-going child face any hardship while pursuing education.
To further alleviate the brunt of the pandemic on the out of school children, States and UTs were asked to formulate a proper strategy for the prevention of high drop-outs and lower enrolments. The central focus was on ensuring that there was no deterioration in the gains made in providing universal access to quality education in recent years. Thus, the Ministry of Education issued guidelines for identification, admission and continued education of out of school children. We also deemed it essential to address the nutritional requirements of our children during the pandemic.
The writer is Union Education Minister, Government of India.