Why in the News
Seasonal migration begins as the Kharif (monsoon-sown crop) harvest ends. This year, drought is turning many seasonal migrants into “climate migrants” headed for sugarcane fields, brick kilns and construction sites. Their children lose months of schooling, and policy still measures success by access and enrolment rather than by whether they learn.
Why does seasonal migration push children out of learning?
- What it is: Seasonal migration means families leave home for months each year to work elsewhere, taking their children along. For the child, it is like missing half of every school year.
- Drought as driver: Intense drought, drying fields and shrinking livelihoods are pushing more families toward distant worksites this year.
- Scale: The last Census counted 9.29 crore migrant children, and no reliable estimate exists of how many are out of school.
- What the disruption does: Breaks in schooling often last five to six months, and they:
- widen learning gaps;
- weaken social ties and the child’s sense of belonging at school;
- raise irregular attendance and dropout;
- pull children into child labour, as they start helping parents at work.
- The takeaway: Children who move with their parents lose schooling time that the system neither tracks nor makes up.
What has policy done so far?
- Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (2001): It made a systematic effort to remove barriers to school access for migrant children and expanded schools in remote, underserved areas.
- Alternative models: It promoted seasonal hostels, residential schools, bastishalas (settlement schools), sakharshalas (sugarcane schools), tent schools at construction sites and transit education centres.
- Law and policy: The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 and the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 both recognise migrant children’s exclusion and stress inclusive education.
- NITI Aayog roadmap: Its report, ‘School Education System in India: Temporal Analysis and Policy Roadmap for Quality Enhancement’, recommends:
- migration-responsive schooling;
- bridge learning centres;
- portable school records;
- inter-State transfer mechanisms;
- tracking systems.
Why is access to school not enough?
- Access-first focus: In practice, policy has stayed fixed on access and enrolment, which are only the first steps.
- Learning needs: Getting migrant children into class is not enough. They need remedial teaching to catch up, academic and mental health support, and care for their emotional well-being.
- Beyond worksite schools: Schools at worksites help, but equitable, context-responsive alternative models must also meet migrant children’s distinct learning needs, as NEP 2020 advocates.
- Teacher preparation: Most teacher education programmes assume settled, formal schooling, so teachers are not prepared to address the inequalities migrant children face in classrooms.
Challenges
- Invisible children: With no count of out-of-school migrant children, schemes cannot target the children they are meant to reach.
- Separate State systems: Source and destination States run different school systems, languages and curricula, so a migrating child struggles to continue the same course.
- Mid-session disruption: Migration after the Kharif harvest falls in the middle of the school year, so admission drives at the start of the year miss these children.
Way Forward
- Migration-responsive teacher education: Integrate migration-responsive pedagogy into teacher education programmes without delay.
- Records that travel: Implement NITI Aayog’s portable records and inter-State transfer mechanisms, so a child’s schooling moves with the family.
- Bridge and remedial support: Run bridge learning centres and remedial teaching for children returning from worksites.
- Measure learning: Judge the system by whether migrant children learn, participate and progress, not only by whether they enrol.
Conclusion
Schooling for migrant children has been designed to bring them into classrooms, not to keep their learning continuous as they move. What to watch is whether States begin measuring migrant children’s learning, not only their enrolment, during this migration season.
Schemes and Initiatives for School Education
- Samagra Shiksha: It integrates schooling from pre-school to Class 12, with a focus on universal access and bringing out-of-school children back into formal education.
- NIPUN Bharat Mission: It targets foundational literacy and numeracy, so that every child can read and do basic arithmetic by the end of Grade 3.
- National Child Labour Project (NCLP): It mainstreams rescued child labourers into formal schools through bridge courses, special training and a stipend.
- Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR): The “One Nation, One ID” for students links a learner’s academic records and transfers on one portal.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2020, GS2, 15 marks] National Education Policy 2020 is in conformity with the Sustainable Development Goal-4 (2030). It intends to restructure and reorient education system in India. Critically examine the statement.”
