Off the streets and into school

Their parents were forced to shift from villages to cities due to natural disasters, lack of employment or both. Now these children of the landless and marginal farmers in Bangladesh -- estimated at three million - are roaming the city streets, working at small jobs, with little likelihood of better prospects. And if it were not for some NGOs, most wouldn't have seen the insides of a school.

The Bangladesh Observer, in a recent editorial, had described the situation: "The real tragedy of the street children is not so much our neglect, but the fact that their parents have to depend on them to stay alive...."

There are 500,000 poor children, between 9 and 16, in the capital, Dhaka, working as domestic workers, vendors, porters, cleaner, trash collectors and shoe-shine boys. Many live on the streets, in filth and squalor.

The police tries to keep them off the streets but that only deprives them of income, aggravating problems like malnutrition.

This is where organisations like the Under Privileged Children's Educational Programme step in. The UCEP doesn't provide food but bolsters the children's chances by giving them an education. Around for 25 years, it has nearly 12,000 students enrolled in its 22 general schools, and 1,000 others in its three technical schools. Girls constitute 30-36 per cent of the students. It has institutions close to shanty towns in Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna and Rajshahi, to enable very poor children to attend classes without difficulty.

Education is up to class seven and from class two onward, a year's education is compressed into six months, enabling children complete their basic education in four years. The school day lasts just two hours so that the children can get back to work fast. Most children who enroll are at least 10 years old, and they move to vocational training after completing their basic education. And it helps.

Until a couple of years ago, many thousands of these children were absorbed by the booming garment industry, But after a threat of boycott by the US companies, their biggest buyers, they laid off nearly 50,000 under-age child workers.

For example, Razia, 18, worked in a Dhaka garment factory after a trade course from a UCEP technical school. Her younger brother, Solaiman, is now studying in a UCEP general school. Razia's mother says, ''The UCEP is a blessing from Allah. We are grateful for what it has done for my two children.''

Such gratitude is valid since the NGO has courses on electronics, knitting, printing, garment-making, carpentry, welding, tailoring, textiles, plumbing and repair of refrigerators, air coolers and automobiles. Such courses, varying between six months to three years, would otherwise have been beyond the means of these children. And unlike in state-run schools, the average attendance rate is 87 per cent and the drop-out rate, six per cent.

Teachers also serve as social workers, going from slum to slum to motivate parents to enrol their children. And if a student is absent for three consecutive days, a teacher is sent to the child's home to sort out problems there, if any.

Graduates of the technical schools get jobs in nearby mills, factories and other enterprises with help from the UCEP management, which keeps in close touch with their employers.

UCEP Deputy Director Taifur Rahman, said about 46,000 students have graduated from these schools since their launch in 1972. Alumni are earning between $ 50 and $ 150 a month. Some ex-students are even earning $ 250, he said proudly.

UCEP was started a year after the independence of Bangladesh, by Abdullah Miah, with assistance from a New Zealander, the late L A Cheney, a relief worker during the war years.

Now, six donors are pumping in around $ 250,000 every year into the project with the Bangladesh government chipping in with land grants for schools and offices, keeping a project going that both prepares children for the world and keeps them out of trouble at the same time.