Back

    Children’s Rights International LogoJOURNAL
    Children’s Rights International
    Justice is Hope
    An Initiative of World Congress on Family Law and Children’s Rights Inc.

    1

    Child labour, basic education and international donor policies

    Every child has the right to full-time education of good quality. The campaign ‘Stop Child labour – School is the best place to work’ therefore argues for integrated donor policies in the areas of education and the elimination of child labour. While the campaign welcomes the increasing amount of international development assistance being spent on providing basic education in developing countries, it seeks to ensure that sufficient policy and funding focus is targeted at not just those within the school system but those excluded from it as well. It is time to work towards a policy perspective that can offer all working children and other out-of-school children free, formal and full-time quality education.1

    Our vision

    Through years of involvement in the issues of child labour and basic education in the South, we have come to the conclusion that poverty is not, as is often believed, the major cause of child labour nor is it the main obstacle to making full-time formal education accessible for every child. Child labour is in the vast majority of cases not necessary to ‘help families survive’. Many studies show that children’s wages only contribute in a meagre way to the family’s income, whereas the cost of children missing out on education is much greater in both the individual development of the child as well as development of society as a whole. Several experiences in a country like India show us that existing social norms, tradition, exclusion and discrimination of certain groups as well as a badly or ‘indifferently’ functioning educational system are the most important reasons why children are working and not attending school. In Indian states with rather low per capita incomes like Kerala and Himachal Pradesh almost all the children are going to school because of the active approaches taken by their governments and civil society. 

    Our Indian partner organisation the MV Foundation (MVF) has over the previous twelve years been able to mainstream a total of 320.000 working and other out-of-school children into full-time schools, including many girls.2 While MVF started by ‘targeting’ certain groups of children in the worst forms of child labour, they soon discovered that to make an impact on eliminating child labour as a whole or even withdraw children from hazardous work, they had to deal with the whole population of out-of-school children. Without the existence of a norm that ‘No child should work and every child should be in school’, bringing one group of children to school would mean that another group would soon replace them.

    As their programme unfolded and MVF became the nucleus of a movement, parents and working children have become active participants in the process to give every child access to education. This mobilisation is not restricted to parents but includes all relevant stakeholders like teachers, parents, village councils, local officials and the state government. All are needed to cut across the barriers of class, caste, gender, ethnicity etc. in order to mobilise joint action that can take on vested interests and established ways of thinking of employers, local authorities and sometimes even the parents themselves. New methods, like bridge camps and bridge classes, were started on a large scale to ‘mainstream’ even older working children into the formal school system, while at the same time improving the existing education system in co-operation with all stakeholders.

    In this process parents were able to successfully lobby for higher wages because large numbers of children were no longer available for work.

    The discussion about the right to education often ignores the inextricable link between universalisation of education and the abolition of child labour. A large number of children are notgoing toschool because of their involvement in some form of child labour. The emphasis has been on providing infrastructure and improving the quality of education. Though these inputs are very important, they are not enough to bring all children to school.  It is essential that the school system itself - together with other ‘stakeholders like parents, children and civil society - actively enrols and retains all working and other out-of-school children - including girls who work at home - into formal full-time education. This implies the need to establish or (re)confirm the norm that work should never be an impediment to full-time education.

    Many people however - including international donors - believe that child labour is ‘a necessary evil’.This view limits the international donors’ approach on child labour mainly to a focus on its worst forms labour, leading to piecemeal ad hoc solutions  and creating an obstacle to a sustainable comprehensive strategy towards the elimination of all forms of child labour.The result isoften that one group of children is replaced by another as a cheap source of labour, since there is no norm that child labour is unacceptable. Providing informal part-time education to working children, equally conveys the message that child labour is acceptable for some children, thereby creating or reinforcing ‘’first and second class rights’ to education. Within this context the campaign maintains that any form of child education, like night schools or part-time education, are supporting child labour and therefore must be challenged.

    International agreements within the UN framework

    The above vision and experiences are in fact a logical consequence of agreements made at the international (UN) level. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights includes the right to education of which ‘primary education shall be compulsory and available free to all’.  ‘The Convention on the Rights of the Child’ (CRC), which is ratified by almost all countries, likewise obliges States to implement compulsory and free basic education.  Moreover the States are bound by this Convention to ‘’provide for appropriate penalties and other sanctions... in order to protect children from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education’’.

    'The international community’s approach on combating child labour is at the moment mainly based on  the new ILO Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour which calls for immediate actions to end the most hazardous and exploitative forms of labour for children and young people up to the age of 18. This Convention, adopted in 1999, has now (June 2005) been ratified by 154 countries. The much older Convention 138 on the ‘Minimum Age for Employment’ is another - even more important - international instrument in the fight against child labour, but it receives much less attention than Convention 182. Convention 138 stipulates that the minimum age for employment should not be lower than the age of completion of compulsory schooling and should not be lower than 15 years.  Developing countries can opt for a minimum of 14 years initially. The ratification of this Convention has considerably increased in the last few years, up to 137 countries at present.

    The problem 

    Although most countries have ratified the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention for the Right of the Child, both ILO Conventions and have subscribed to the Millennium Development Goals, the policy of international donors with regard to education in developing countries and the policy against child labour is generally not based on a comprehensive and integrated view of these instruments.

    The problem is that:

    • The policy of international donors with regard to education in developing countries has no explicit vision and approach that aims at the integration of approximately 246 million working children around the globe into formal, full-time basic education. As far as there is a vision, it is based on the presumption that part-time education for many working children is the ‘utmost achievable’.
    • The policy against child labour is largely based on Convention 182 to combat the worst forms of child labour. While children in these worst forms do need special attention, this can only be done effectively while also building a norm that condemns all forms all child labour. In the absence of such a norm, it will be difficult to abolish even the worst forms of child labour. Child labour policies of donors must therefore be linked to providing full-time basic education for all children, with specific strategies for reaching out to specific groups.   

    This can be very well illustrated by the Dakar Framework for Action, the renewed commitment of the international community – adopted in 2000 – for the achievement of education for all in 2015. ‘Dakar’ - for which UNESCO has the first responsibility - does not make any reference to child labour at all. The focus of international donors such as UNICEF, ILO-IPEC and the World Bank with regard to child labour has mostly been on particular groups suffering from the worst forms of child labour (though recently ILO-IPEC has taken a more comprehensive approach, see below). The World Bank talks about ‘harmful child labour’. It concludes in its Child Labour Handbook: ’’While emotionally appealing (…) a ban on child labour and/or compulsory school attendance may reduce rather than improve welfare. Above all it is very difficult to enforce.’’

    To a large extent these (policy) contradictions arise out of the assumption that two important values clash: the right to education and the right to survive/ live. A choice is then made for the latter presuming that poverty makes it impossible for working children to follow full-time education-a choice between the lesser of two evils, or so it seems. We believe, and the experience of the MV Foundation has proven, that the survival versus education arguments are not mutually exclusive, and that also poor parents will go to great lengths to send their children to school.

    In reality, it is not only desirable but also practically feasible – through an integrated education and child labour policy in both developing and donor countries – to include children of poor families into formal full-time education and to fight all forms of child labour that keep children from attending full time education. In fact, the so-called choice between ‘two evils’ only serves to perpetuate both child labour and poverty.

    Hopeful developments

    In a recent document ‘’Combating child labour through education’’ (2003)3 of the International Programme on the Elimination of Child labour (IPEC), the ILO clearly links up the right to formal, full-time formal education and the eradication of child labour. Here are a few relevant quotes from this document:

    • ‘’For the goal of universal primary education to be reached by 2015, governments will not only need have to accelerate efforts to achieve EFA (education for All), but also to step up efforts to eliminate child labour, which should be an integral part of education policies.’’
    • ‘’International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour’s non-formal or transitional education programmes have enabled former child workers to ‘catch up’ with their peers who began their schooling at the appropriate age. However, there should always be a strong link between such rehabilitation programmes and the formal education system’’.
    • ‘’Experience has shown that providing basic literacy and numeric skills through non-formal education does not guarantee that children will be permanently withdrawn from work, which is why mainstreaming these children into formal education systems is vital.’’
    •  ‘’Institutional arrangements in the formal school system such as transitional classes for older students, bridging courses and active efforts to enrol children who are not in school through monitoring and home visits.’’

    The recent (April 2004) study ‘’At what age? Are school-children employed, married and taken to court?’’4 by the Right to Education Project and UNESCO’s International Bureau of Education concludes: “The goals of universal education and elimination of child labour are inextricably linked. Free and compulsory education of good quality secured until the minimum age for entry to employment is a critical factor in the struggle against economic exploitation of children, while child labour is a fundamental obstacle to the development and implementation of compulsory education strategies. Minimum age labour laws and compulsory education laws are therefore interdependent: the enforcement of one contributes to the enforcement of the other. In this sense, it is crucial to establish a link between school and labour authorities, legislation and practice.”

    Finally, a new study by ILO-IPEC, ‘’Investing in Every Child, An Economic Study of the Costs and Benefits of Eliminating Child Labour’’ (February 2004), concludes that the benefits of eliminating child labour will be nearly seven times greater than its cost. This convincingly defeats the argument that fighting all forms of child labour might be desirable but not feasible for developing countries.

    Recommendations

1. Donor policies with regard to education and child labour must be based on the combined mandate of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, both ILO Conventions regarding child labour and the second Millennium Development Goal that aims to get all children into school in 2015. All programs for basic education in developing countries - for which billions of Euros will be spent by donors in the coming years -  should therefore contain or develop a strategy in order to integrate all working and other non-school going children into formal, full-time education up to the legal age for completing basic education and at least fourteen.5 

2. Both bilateral and multilateral donors need an integrated policy on the issues of basic education and the elimination of child labour as part of their overall poverty reduction strategy. Such integration at policy level has to be translated into a better co-ordination at country level. Traditionally, international development aid to education is often dealt with by the Ministry of International Co-operation while Ministries of Labour or of Social Welfare are responsible for child labour. The co-ordination and co-operation between them should be greatly improved.

3. Prevention is better than to cure. That is also true for child labour. Therefore donors should support governments, NGOs, trade unions and other groups who are campaigning to get all children of ‘school going age’ to school and to keep them there. Support for such campaigns as well as for pre-school education, crèches etc. is an important contribution to ensuring the right to full-time education, especially for children from poor and vulnerable groups. 

4. To ensure the right to full-time education, international donorsmust – wherever possible – contribute to the promotion and implementation of laws on compulsory education and the prohibition of child labour and their compatibility.6 In addition, donors must contribute to the right to education and prohibition of child labour in practice. It is therefore necessary that development co-operation for basic education is guided by the following criteria and considerations:

    a. Co-operation between the ministries of education, labour and other relevant departments, especially with regard to a better co-ordination of the inspections on education and labour.

    b. Formal full-time education should become and remain free of costs for all children. That includes any additional costs like schoolbooks, uniforms and school transport, which should – especially where the poor are concerned - be borne by the government.

    c. Establishing the norm that no child should work has to be part and parcel of every programme that aims to get all children into full-time education. This can only be done through the  education and mobilisation of each and every ‘stakeholder’ in education: including children, parents,  teachers, town and village councils, (local) government, education and labour inspection, institutions for welfare and security, public transport, unions and NGOs.

    d. The mandate, competencies and funding of the education system (from the Ministry for Education to every single school) should be designed in such a way that the education system is not only responsible for children already going to school. It should also be responsible for the implementation of measures to get all working and other non-school going children into school, including any child under fourteen that has missed school when he/she was younger. It is also necessary to establish a system of visits to (likely) ‘drop-outs’ and their parents as soon as possible, talk about their problems and try to find a solution. All this means that close co-operation is needed between all stakeholders and that resources should be made available allowing active participation of the local community.

    e. The above mentioned mandate should also include the organisation of ‘bridge-schools’ (via courses, classes, extra lessons etc.) that will help older children to mainstream into full-time education. In addition ‘bureaucratic barriers’ to education should be removed or parents should be supported to overcome them. These include: filling in registration forms, securing of a birth certificate or a medical proof of illness, inadequate school transport, mandatory school uniforms, impossibility to enrol after the age of 6 etc. All these seemingly trivial issues often keep children out of school or lead to drop-outs. The education system should help parents - especially those who are illiterate and poor - to deal with these matters.

    f. Special attention for, and a more direct approach towards ‘girls labour’ is absolutely necessary (also note point 8). The work of girls is hardly visible and contributes to the large ‘gender gap’ in education today. An important problem is that working in ones own or even somebody else’s household, even is this is interfering with the right to education, is often not considered as child labour.

    g. Discrimination and exclusion on the basis of gender, race, caste, culture, language, faith, disabilities etc. should be tackled by the school system. They are important reasons why many children are working and not in school. Discrimination outside the school keeps certain groups out, while discrimination inside the school – for example discriminatory behaviour of teacher’s and a biased curriculum - pushes children out of school.

    h. Improving the quality of education in terms of teaching methodology, content and pedagogy is very important, but it is often mentioned as the only way to enrol and retain children to school. However: offering quality is not enough. For quality education to be sustainable there has to be mobilisation around (and the realisation of) the norm that every child should go to school. Establishing such a norm should also be seen as an aspect of quality. Once this norm is (being) established a demand for quality education is likely to arise from the community and the improvements in quality in response to such a demand will be more sustainable.

5. International donors could support programs for school meals, thereby promoting participation in education especially for the poor - often undernourished - children. This would also be an important contribution to improving the learning capacity of poor students and moreover it is a contribution to their right to food.

6. Giving financial support to (parents of) former working children who are now going to school is not advisable, especially if it regards separate schools for ex-child labourers. These programs are often highly dependent on donations, are not financially sustainable, limited in scope, sensitive to corruption, and there is a possibility that parents take their children out of the public schools in order to benefit from subsidised schools. Supporting poor families financially through programs of social security provided that their children go to school, like the Brazilian Bolsa Escola program7, is a better approach.

7. The laudable present focus on the gender gap in education must be matched by equal attention for the work girls are doingthat hampers their participation in full-time education. When girls are attending school they are often dropping out in their early puberty. Efforts to get girls to school should, where possible, take place as part of an overall strategy that applies to all non-school going children, even if additional measures might be needed. An ‘’isolated approach’ for certain groups of girls is likely to encounter a lot more opposition and is more likely to get stuck in ad hoc unsustainable projects instead of contributing to a structural participation of girls in the educational system. The same principle of ‘inclusion’ contrary to ‘isolation’ should apply to other groups that are discriminated on the basis of ethnicity, caste, disability, HIV/AIDS etc. 

8. Part-time education or other forms of informal basic education for working children must always serve as a temporary bridge towards elementary formal full-time education. International donors should, in line with ILO Convention 138, not support any permanent part-time educational systemfor children below 14 years of age that allow or even trigger them to work (almost) full-time as well. These programmes keep young children working, increase their work load and often lead to dropping out of school. Any existing parallel systems should be redesigned in order to enable children to enter formal full-time education.  Although formal public education sometimes is of a bad quality, this is no reason to implement a part-time ‘alternative system’ for working children but requires improving the quality of the entire educational system.

9. The work of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and (teachers’) unions is of great importance in the fight against child labour and ensuring the right to full-time education. NGOs must not however take over the responsibility of governments for education but rather, together with other stakeholders, stimulate the government to take the overarching responsibility for the education system. From the point of view of the  widely used sectored approach in bilateral development co-operation - within which the right to education is often a priority - it is therefore highly recommendable to identify and support  public organisations (among which NGOs and unions) who can contribute to advocating changes in the policy in the areas of child labour and education.

10. The World Bank, the European Union, UNICEF, ILO-IPEC, UNESCO and other multilateral donors must work on a comprehensive education and child labour policy along the lines described above. ILO-IPEC is already moving in that direction through - amongst others - a large program that is directed to mainstreaming ex-working children into public full-time education in co-operation with the Indian government.

11. The specific programs and projects against child labour supported by international donors should:

- be less focused on fighting only the worst forms of child labour, but should instead focus more on broader programs which aim at the elimination of all forms of child labour that keep children out of school and/or are hazardous;

- link up or mainstream or expand existing programmes or projects combating the worst forms of child labour (e.g. by providing education), with programmes that are focused on mainstreaming all children into formal daytime education.

    12. Ongoing as well as planned donor-funded programs for education in developing countries should be monitored and evaluated as soon as possible on their contribution to the fight of all forms of child labour that keep children out of full-time schools. This implies that they are evaluated with regard to their strategies to get working and other non-school going children into formal daytime education. This is even more pressing as there is an increase in development assistance for basic education. With such an assessment and follow-up plan of action there is a ‘clear and present danger’ that such development assistance will not, or only to a small extent, reach poor and marginalised children that are now out of school.
The misleading conception that (all or most) working children cannot attend formal full-time education because of poverty, but are better off with part-time education alongside their work, is still robbing millions of children of their right to education.

    October 2004
    Updated on figures: June 2005

    Participating organisations in the campaign are:

    • Concern, Ireland;
    • Deutsche Welthungerhilfe, Germany;
    • Hivos, The Netherlands;
    • Netherlands Teachers’ Union (AOb),
    • Netherlands Federation of Trade Unions (FNV)
    • India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN). 

    Contact person for this policy paper is: Gerard Oonk.
    Contact details:
    India Committee of the Netherlands
    Mariaplaats 4
    3511 LH Utrecht
    The Netherlands
    E-mail: g.oonk@indianet.nl

    The campaign ‘Stop Child Labour – School is the best place to work’ is officially supported by Education International, ‘the world’s largest educator’s federation represents 26 million members through its 310 member organisations’.

    1. This paper does not deal with – however important - the role of the private sector and trade in combating child labour and the realisation of the right to education.

    2. Look for more information, including recent evaluation report, on: www.mvfindia.org

    3. The European Parliament - in the resolution of May 2003 on education in developing countries - ‘Points out that universal full-time education requires an effective ban on child labour as well as an education system that includes strategies to integrate all working and other out-of-school children into full-time schooling; calls on the Community to ensure that all education programmes financed by the Community have far-reaching strategies which include social mobilisation and bridging courses for older children’.

    4. According to the report: At What Age?... (www.right-to-education.org) only 45 of 158 nations surveyed have equalised the school leaving age and the minimum age for employment. In 36 countries children can be employed full-time while they are still obliged to be in full-time education. At the other end of the scale, children in another 21 countries must at least wait one year and up to three years after completing compulsory education before they can legally work.

    Disclaimer

    The views expressed in the CRI Journal are those of the author's and are included to enhance discussion, they do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Children's Rights International.