Buddha's Smile School

Various studies have revealed that poverty can be reduced by sending children from India’s disadvantaged groups to schools instead of sending them to work. If a child is in school, adults of his/her family will get work from where the child used to work. When the child of family goes for work then, adults of that family generally sit idle and the wages earned by the children are ill spent by their family. The employers prefer to engage children on work rather than adults so that they have to pay less wages to children. In this way children are exploited.

Fifty years into Independence, India’s children have little to celebrate: 6.3 crore (63 million) of them are still out of school. This despite the constitutional directive urging all states to provide “free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of 14 years”. The Constitution envisaged fulfilling this promise by 1960. Yet, if present trends continue, India is still 50 years away from reaching the goal.