Education for the urban poor
Policy making for education in developing countries has in many cases not yet caught up with the implications of increasing urban poverty. Education indicators are typically much better in urban than rural areas, hiding the often vaster inequalities within cities, where the richest and poorest live side by side.
I have set up the Education and Urban Poverty website as a place for research and news on this theme. (Contributions would be welcome!)
In this post - http://edurbpov.blogspot.it/2012/04/research-agenda.html - I set out what I see as some of the most pressing questions for research and policy:
1. What can we say with existing data? Do household surveys like DHS and MICS cover the urban poor, including marginalized groups like those who live in slums and recent migrants?
2. What access do the urban poor have to education, and what are the barriers?
3. Is education a path out of poverty? Cities may be centres of economic opportunities, but can the urban poor avail of these, with or without an education?
4. What happens inside schools? Are urban poor children stigmatized by their backgrounds? Or supported and treated equally?
5. What type of provision? NGOs often step in where government school provision fails, tailoring their services to the circumstances, such as timetables that allow for children's work. But where are the models of NGO programmes that coordinate well with government services, avoid being cast as second-rate education for the poor, and help young people find better jobs afterwards?
Professor KK Pandey, 30 July 2012Education and poverty are closely linked with each other.it will include literacy and technical/job oriented education to poor.At the same time it should be accompnied by sustainable system to deliver education at grass roots level.
It is found difficult to retain children to schools.indian cities have statedmid day meal and innovative teaching to develop interest and comfort under balwari schemes of education.
Adult education is equally important.Similarly right to education has been introduced in Indis which will go a long way to promote social inclusion.The question is to provide opportunities-talents are largely similar.
Stuart Cameron from Italy, 30 July 2012Prof. Pandey, many thanks for your comment! Yuko Tsujita has done some interesting work on education in slums of New Delhi http://www.ide.go.jp/English/Publish/Download/Dp/317.html. Anyone know of other recent work on this theme in India?
Factors that Prevent Children from Gaining Access to Schooling: A Study of Delhi Slum Households - Discussion Paper No. 317 - Institute of Developing Economies
http://www.ide.go.jp/English/Publish/Download/Dp/317.html
Professor KK Pandey, 31 July 2012At the outset the factors indicated in the book seems very much to the point.There are certain recent initiatives which seek reservation to poor in the private schools of high repute.Again , implementation is a major issue as indicated by the study covering awareness and simplification of procedure.
but in this case there is another factor i.e. variation in the social status(economic as well) create a gap in the behavior .This needs to be attended to effectively retain the poor children in a different set of students.