Ensuring Education For Migrant Children

As the Covid-19-induced migration threatens to multiply the enrolment-attendance mismatch and increase the number of out-of-school children, India needs to steer effective policy from the files to the field. With the enactment of the Right to Education Act in 2009, authorities are obliged to guarantee the schooling of children from migrant families.

Yet, estimates from Census 2011 throw light on the massive challenge at hand—to ensure children from around 10.7 million households in rural India that practice seasonal migration complete elementary education. The three states of Bihar, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh account for half of the 12.82 million children who have never enrolled in schools; and eight states—Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal account for two-thirds of the 35.62 million children who have dropped out……………………………………………..