Small Steps, Bright Futures: The Learning and Migration Program (LAMP) of AIF

The Learning and MigraTion PrograMMe (LaMP) of aif i a reVieW
Small Steps
Lead the Way

Small Steps
Lead The Way
The Learning and MigraTion PrograM (LaMP)
of The aif
a r e v i e w
BY
ravi SrivaSTava & rajaShri daSguPTa

LAMP REVIEW LAMP REVIEW
© AMERICAN INDIA FOUNDATION, 2010
Ravi Srivastava is a Professor of Economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and a former member
of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS), Government of India, 2007. He has
researched extensively on issues relating to labour migration, rural proverty and elementary education, among
others, and has been a policy advisor and consultant to a number of ministries and national and international
development organizations.
Rajashri Dasgupta is a senior journalist, gender activist, and freelance researcher and has focused on health
and migration.
PHOTOGRAPHS: PRASHANT PANJIAR
DESIGN EDITING: BRINDA DATTA
PRINTING: ARCHANA
PHOTOGRAPHS:
Front cover above: Students of migrant brick kiln workers at a seasonal hostel run by LAMP partner, Lokadrusti,
in Salabadihi village, Nuapada district, Orissa.
Back cover: Mohan, son of migrant workers engaged in sugarcane harvesting at a camp beside the highway, on
their return to their village from a sugar factory in Maharashtra.
Title page: Children returning from a non-formal education school run by LAMP partner Yusuf Meherally Centre
for the Machhimaar community at Luni Bunder, Kutchh, Gujarat.
Contents
4
Preface
6
Glossary of Abbreviations
7
Methodology
8
Introduction
14
Objectives Strategies
19
LAMP Partners
33
Interventions Challenges
43
Assessment of LAMP
65
Conclusion
72
Bibliography

Preface
“I will give you a talisman.Whenever in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you,
apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man (woman) whom you
may have seen and ask yourself:
If the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him, will he gain anything by it?
Will it restore his control over his own life and destiny?
In other words, will it lead to Swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?
Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away.”
— Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
n the year 2003, AIF started its first education project with children of sugarcane migrants in Maharashtra, to
provide access to out-of-school children in difficult circumstances. At that point we did not contemplate setting up a
large migration-focussed education program. We ourselves had no idea of the extent of the problems associated
with seasonal migration! But in our search to identify unique, unaddressed issues to fruitfully invest our limited
resources in as we traveled to different parts of the country, we realized the expanse of seasonal migration in varied
forms, in multiple sectors, in almost every backward region of the country. Within the next year we started work
in Gujarat and Orissa also and realized that seasonal migration is an universal yet invisible phenomenon, which is
wreaking havoc in the lives of poor rural families—putting both their present and their future at stake. We also
realized that like us, almost everyone in the development space was ignorant of the issue and its enormity.
AIF began to focus specifically on education of children of seasonal migrants in differing contexts, and went on to
build a portfolio of projects covering multiple sectors and geographies. We called this program LAMP—Learning
and Migration Program. LAMP was essentially an exercise in dealing with the constant, unpredictable mobility
of migrant families, and trying to see how their children could still be retained in the school net, enabling them
to complete their schooling cycle without dropping out. Over five years AIF worked with 19 NGO partners and
touched 1.1 lakh migrant children (cumulatively). We also engaged with the government system to multiply these
numbers, and reach out to maximum possible migrant children under SSA.
In 2009 AIF called for an external review of LAMP. The objectives of this review were to:
Bring about an improved understanding of the metrics of problem and scope for interventions in
the context of UEE goals.
Identify the basket of responses and their effectiveness
Identify areas of improvement, responses and facilitation within constraints
Highlight effective strategies in different sectoral and state contexts.
Sanjay Sinho
Chief Executive Officer, American India Foundation
l
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Bahadur Sabar, one of the students at AIF’s partner NGO Lokadrusti’s seasonal hostel, who has worked
in a brick kiln before. Nuapada district, Orissa, April 2009.

1 Methodology
his report is a review of the Learning and Migration Program (LAMP) of the American India Foundation (AIF),
carried out at the request of AIF. The American India Foundation has, since its inception, been supporting
India’s goal of Universal Elementary Education (UEE) through innovative programs which focus on improving
access and quality of education and which can be mainstreamed into large-scale government interventions. Its
Learning and Migration Program (LAMP), in which AIF and its partners educate children of seasonal migrants, is
an important component of AIF’s activities in India.
This review is based on extensive fieldwork at project sites in three states
(Maharashtra, Gujarat and Orissa) between March and May 2009, where AIF
and its partners are implementing the LAMP. The locations were selected
carefully so that all site schools and hostels which had been in existence for a
year or more could be covered. Although we had divided most of the sites to
be visited between us, in each state some common locations were chosen to
help triangulate the findings. A check list of questions was developed with the
help of AIF and with feedback from its partner NGOs.
The field visits involved discussions with members of the NGOs, non-formal
teachers, staff, children, parents of students, local government officials,
teachers of formal schools, panchayats and community members and visits
to site schools, seasonal hostels and government schools. The extensive
documentation maintained by AIF and its partners was examined and several
discussions were held with AIF staff. AIF and its partners also provided additional information on request during
the course of the review on several aspects of the program, such as the organisational matrix, the planning cycle
of partners, advocacy carried out by AIF and so on. The entire review which included the field trip, a feedback
meeting with AIF and its partners, and follow-up questions and clarifications, lasted for about six months.
While we are satisfied with the insight we got into most aspects of the program, both the timing of the review,
which coincided with India’s General Elections, and the limited time at our disposal did restrict interaction with
State officials who oversaw programs implemented under LAMP. AIF and its partners are currently piloting an
initiative focusing on imparting quality education to children in the residential hostels. Since neither of us have
claim to any expertise in pedagogy it is not possible to comment on the methodology being followed in this pilot
initiative.
The report submitted to AIF in September 2009, comprised separate reports on each of the partner organizations
in the LAMP program and an assembled main report with emphasis on the parent organization. The present report
is an edited version of the ‘main’ report submitted to AIF. Reports on the activities of the partner organizations
may be accessed on the AIF website (www.aif.org).
T
This review is based
on extensive fieldwork
at project sites in three
states (Maharashtra,
Gujarat and Orissa)
between March and
May 2009, where AIF
and its partners are
implementing the
LAMP.
Glossary of Abbreviations
AIE Alternative and Innovative Education
AIF American India Foundation
AKESI Aga Khan Education Services, India
BPL Below Poverty Line
BTF Banyan Tree Foundation
CFT Cohesion Foundation Trust
EGS Education Guarantee Scheme
FCRA Foreign Currency Regulation Act
ICDS Integrated Child Development Scheme
KARMI Kalahandi Organisation for Agriculture
and Rural Marketing Initiative
LAMP Learning And Migration Program
LD Lokadrusti
MOU Memorandum of Understanding
MDG Millennium Development Goals
NREGA National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
NGO Non-Governmental Organisation
OBC Other Backward Classes
RCC Residential Care Centres
RTDA Rural and Tribal Development Agency
RTE Right to Education Act
RTI Right to Information Act
PARDA People’s Awareness for Rural
Development Agency
SC Scheduled Caste
SH Seasonal Hostel
SHG Self Help Group
SS Site School
SSA Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
ST Scheduled Tribe
TLM Teaching and Learning Material
UNDP United Nations Development Program
UEE Universalization of Elementary
Education
VEC Village Education Committees
YMC Yusuf Meharally Centre

uman migration is as old as human history and the pattern of human development is integrally linked
to the pattern of migration. But migration encompasses different streams, and has very different causes
and consequences for different groups of people and for different regions. Most migration is internal to countries.
The UNDP’s Human Development Report of 2009 estimates that approximately 740 million people are internal
migrants, almost four times the number that move across international borders. In India, the 2001 Census estimates
that there were 314.5 million migrants. However, a large percentage of these are women who had moved after
marriage.
The Census, or for that matter the National Sample Survey Organization, which carries out surveys of migration
registers those persons who have stayed in their new destinations for six or more months as migrants—these are
permanent or semi-permanent migrants. The characteristics of these migrants (typically following a bi-modal
distribution in terms of wealth or education characteristics) have been analysed in a number of studies. These
migrants are key to understanding processes of rural-urban migration and growing urban concentrations. However,
short duration migrants are not captured by these sources. But a number of studies show that such migrants,
often described as seasonal or circular, exist in very large, and perhaps growing numbers. They form a significant
proportion of laborers in a number of industries such as construction, brick manufacture, fish processing, quarrying,
salt-pans, and in some states, even agriculture.
According to estimates, seasonally migrant labor could well constitute 10 to 15 per cent of India’s present
estimated workforce of 480 million. They belong to the most poor and deprived sections of society typically
comprising the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Castes (OBCs). Living in discrete
settlements on the outskirts of the main village, SCs/STs occupy the lowest rung in
the hierarchy of the caste system and are treated as social outcasts and untouchables.
Even in post-independent India, atrocities like sexual abuse, murder and arson
against SCs/STs remain unabated. Discrimination, which is an all-pervading character
of the caste system, is not confined to production relations alone; it shapes and
affects access to economic and social resources like children’s education.
These migrants are a product of individual and household livelihood deficits
(generally due to absence of assets) and regional resource and livelihood deficits.
Migration provides subsistence to the workers and their families but exposes them
to a harsh and vulnerable existence with difficult working and living conditions.
In the process of such migration not only are families uprooted from their
homes year after year, they also end up disenfranchised. Families lose the benefits
of State welfare, forego the facilities of the public distribution system and the
public health system in the villages; and fail to access the immunization drive for
young children that takes place during the migration season. A large proportion
of migrant labor do not have statutory entitlement papers like caste certificates,
election cards, BPL cards, old age pension cards and so on. Most migrants do not
even exercise their voting rights because elections are held, as it happened in 2009,
during the migration period.
In the entire process, children’s lives are adversely affected. They are forced to
drop out of school, or never enrol in one. One has to remember that a child out
of school is an important indicator of child labor in the country. Seasonal migrants
2 Introduction
The Significance of Distress Seasonal Migration of the Rural Poor
Seasonally migrant
labor constitutes
10 to 15 per cent
of India’s present
estimated workforce
of 480 million.
They belong to
the most poor and
deprived sections of
society. Migration
provides subsistence
to these workers and
their families but
exposes them to a
harsh and vulnerable
existence with
difficult working and
living conditions.
Growing up at
work sites, migrant
children face a life of
hardship and neglect
right from infancy.
They have minimal
access to clean drinking
water, nutrition, proper
clothing and hygienic
conditions—all of
which affects their
development.
H
t

10 LAMP REVIEW LAMP REVIEW 11
migrate alone (male only, female only, or child only) or quite often in family units
(husband, wife, children). When migration takes place as a family unit, each part
of the family unit, excluding infants, contributes to family subsistence in one way
or another: in work or as part of the household ‘care’ economy. For children, the
work environment means unusual harshness and deprivations.
Despite its magnitude and its significance vis-à-vis human development goals,
seasonal migration is little understood and rarely focused upon in the Indian
policy discourse. This is in contrast to the situation in China, where research and
policy debate has paid much greater attention to the nature and implication of
labor migration. But there can hardly be any doubt that this migration centrally
affects the lives of millions of poor families and hence also India’s performance
in achieving Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), of which the second aims at
achieving Universal Primary Education by 2015.
Seasonal Migration and Its Impact on
Children’s Education
Since Independence, in accordance with the Constitutional commitment to ‘ensure
free and compulsory education for all children up to the age of 14 years’, provision
of Universal Elementary Education (UEE) has been a salient feature of the national
policy. The National Policy on Education, 1986, assures that ‘free and compulsory
education of satisfactory quality’ will be provided to all children up to 14 years of
age before the turn of the 21st century.
The Indian government has been committed to the Universalization of Elementary Education (UEE) by 2010
under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). And now the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act,
2009, has been put into operation. This has strengthened the resolve to deepen efforts and create alternative
and innovative options to achieve UEE for children below 14 years of age by 2010. Promoting and strengthening
structured teaching—both formal and informal—is an area of particular concern. The poor have the right not
only to read and write and acquire information but also for entertainment and engagement with a world beyond
their own. UEE is being critically impacted upon by seasonal migration. However, Indian data are not attuned to
capture either the extent of this migration or its impact on child education, on which we dwell below.
All studies show that seasonal migrants are in their prime working age
(18-45 years). Since migrants come from the poorest and economically the
most vulnerable sections of the working population, their own educational
attainment is nil or negligible. A majority of those who are married in this
age group have young children. Migration of either one or both the parents
has the potential of reducing the child’s probability of being educated.
Whenever both men and women migrate, more often than not, migration
takes place as a family unit also involving children.
The diversity of migration situations needs to be emphasized to ensure
that interventions confront the specific contexts. Migration cycles range
from a few weeks to a few months (7-9). From an out-migrating point of
origin, even though modal patterns of migration exist, one may come across
considerable diversity, on aspects such as, say, whether the migration is
individual or family based; the extent to which migration is organized through
recruiters; the type of destination (proximity, rural/urban, intra/inter-state,
and type of work); and so on. From the destination areas point of view,
once again different types of diversities exist depending upon issues such as
whether the migrants originate from neighbouring or distant areas; their
cultural/linguistic commonalities with these areas; the type of work that they
do; the extent to which children are an essential part of the labor process;
the degree of isolation, fragmentation, and segmentation that the migrant
labor force is subjected to and so on.
Studies show that virtually all types of migration from poor households affects child education and child
development, although the severity of the impact may differ. The focus of AIF interventions has been on family
migration i.e. situations where migrant laborers migrate with children. But the context in which this occurs in
different geographies varies. This is briefly described here and in greater detail in the partner reports (available
at www.aif.org).
At any point of time, school-age children of migrants fall into two categories:
those who are out of school (these children may never have enrolled, or may have enrolled and
dropped out)
those who are nominally enrolled.
When migration
takes place as a
family unit, each
part of the family
unit, excluding
infants, contributes
to family
subsistence in one
way or another:
in work or as part
of the household
‘care’ economy.
All studies show that
seasonal migrants are in
their prime working age
(18-45 years).
Since migrants come
from the poorest
sections, their own
educational attainment
is nil or negligible.
Most of those who are
married have young
children. Migration
of either one or both
the parents has the
potential of reducing
the child’s probability of
being educated.
l
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In some sectors like
brick kilns, jobs are
assigned starting from
the youngest children.
Migrant children from
Orissa working at a kiln
in Hyderabad, Andhra
Pradesh.
t

Due to continuous interruptions in schooling, the latter eventually drop out at
some stage or another. During fieldwork to review LAMP, we encountered both
types of children in the project states. In rural Maharashtra, Gujarat and Orissa, a
number of children (more girls than boys) were out of school or never enrolled. In
Gujarat, in the destination areas especially in the salt-pans, a number of children
were nominally enrolled during the government-sponsored enrolment drive but
their schooling was disrupted for several months during the migration period. In
Maharashtra, in the villages visited, most of the children were nominally enrolled
but were compelled to accompany their parents to the sugarcane fields in the
cutting season, which could last from November to April. During exam time, if
distances permitted, these children were shepherded to their villages to sit for
the examinations, which would be no more than a farce for them; farce, because
they are out of touch with studies at the work sites. If exams were not possible,
the probability of dropping out of schools became high. Similarly in Orissa, most
children were initially enrolled but could not continue with education once they
entered the migration cycle. Although annual examinations were held in schools,
these children (who usually migrated long distances to other states) could not take
exams. Since the system ensured automatic promotions till class 7, these children
could still find their names in the school registers in the next class, but eventually
dropped out.
Nominal enrolments are convenient for several parts of the existing system.
Teachers and officials can claim high enrolments which are a sign of success. The
corrupt can lay claim to the benefits and entitlements which should accrue to
school-going children. Even parents may not mind being on the right side of the
system, and their children occasionally receiving some of the ‘benefits’. But such
a state of affairs does not provide genuine schooling to the migrant children who
eventually drop out.
There are two important issues which flow from this:
First, there is little awareness in India that the migration cycle of its vulnerable
workers could cause serious disruptions in the education of both nominally enrolled
and non-enrolled children.
Second, the data system which deals with categories such as ‘enrolled’ and
‘dropped out’ provides no information on the large body of children who are
irregular attendees and effectively non-enrolled. The government, however,
recognizes the problem and includes in the definition of ‘drop out’ those children
who, while enrolled, are unable to attend school for fairly long stretches.
In conclusion, an account of dropped out children (including both the nominally
enrolled and the non-enrolled) reveals that the access to education for children
of an overwhelming proportion of seasonal family migrants is adversely affected.
The impact is less severe for children of migrant households with single adult
migrants.
Seasonal migration
affects the lives
of millions of
poor families and
hence also India’s
performance
in achieving
Millenium
Development
Goals, of which
the second aims at
achieving Universal
Primary Education
by 2015. Despite
its magnitude and
its significance
vis-à-vis human
development goals,
seasonal migration
is little understood
and rarely focused
upon in the Indian
policy discourse.
l
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At a site school for
children of a migrant
fishing community in
Kutchh, Gujarat.
t

he American India Foundation is a non-profit organization set up by Indian Americans in 2001 with the goal
of supporting accelerated social and economic change in India. One of AIF’s key mandates is to support the
objective of universal basic education in India through its focus on the dimensions of access, retention and quality
of education for children. AIF’s approach to grant making in the area of elementary education is premised on the
principle that it is the State’s responsibility to fulfill its constitutional mandate of free and compulsory education for
all children between 6 and 14 years of age. AIF’s education grants program, therefore, focuses on complementing
and supplementing State efforts in meeting the above commitments.
The Government of India’s efforts have led to increased enrolments in school but the key issues of universal
access, retention and quality still remain important especially with respect to ‘hard-to-reach’ or ‘left out children’.
AIF focuses on the ‘left-out children’ and works with partner NGOs to find ways to ensure that such children have
access to quality education, and are able to successfully complete the primary and the elementary cycle. AIF works
with the following broad categories of children who are excluded due to a complex combination of physical and
social reasons:
children of seasonal migrants
deprived urban children
In these groups, the focus is on the girl child and ethnic/religious minorities. Through its efforts, AIF works to
improve the quality of education and strengthening government schools.
The Learning and Migration Program (LAMP) of AIF , which began in 2003, focuses on the category of ‘left out’
children of seasonal migrants. Since seasonal migration has not been an important part of policy discourse, it is
not surprising that issues of education of migrant children have remained largely unaddressed. The ashramshalas
(hostel-schools) supported by government in tribal areas indirectly addressed this issue. Some State-level programs
also made provisions for hostels for migrant children. The major Central government program for supporting
universal education, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) did not initially factor in the special requirements of these
children. This, however, has been a major focus of AIF advocacy. Given the inadequate attention paid to seasonal
migration, the large number of children who are affected (AIF estimates these to be more than 9 million), and
the important links between migration, poverty and development, we consider AIF’s intervention to be extremely
well founded.
Through AIF’s LAMP, its partners now directly educate more than 30,000 children
every year in three states and their concerted advocacy efforts have moved the State
governments to support and scale-up these models of education. This has resulted
in a significant increase in the number of such children being educated.
The SSA framework now supports the education of these children at work sites
as well as through seasonal hostels. These measures have been followed up in some
states. Persistent advocacy by AIF and its partners has played a role in grounding
these initiatives. Further, other funding organizations have also got involved in
supporting these initiatives.
3
The AIF Mandate and LAMP
Objectives
Strategies
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Ethnic and religious
minorities are one of
the focus groups of AIF
interventions.
A site school in
Saurashtra, Gujarat.
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Program Strategy
The education initiative by AIF works through collaboration with partner NGOs.
The choice of states in which LAMP is currently grounded is an outcome both
of identification of large seasonal migration streams and of NGOs who would
be willing to work with AIF in the program. The current intervention states are
Maharashtra, Gujarat and Orissa, with some activity in the state of Karnataka. Once
NGOs are identified, goal posts are set out through a partnership framework in
the form of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
Till 2008, AIF support to its partners was based on an annual MoU. With Setu,
however, AIF had a three-year MoU from the start. In 2008, a three-year MoU (2008-
2011) has been formalized with all the partner organizations. The MoUs specify
the activities to be undertaken by the partners, the reporting and monitoring
requirements and the level of support to be provided by AIF. AIF supports the core
activities of the partners i.e. setting up of site schools and seasonal hostels with a
small amount of additional support provided to cover program overheads. Unit
costs are generally pegged at the level of SSA benchmarks (with the exception of
salaries). In recent years, the AIF also required partners to scale up support levels
from government with the objective of providing an incentivized ‘matching’
support, with variations from partner to partner.
It must be pointed out that AIF support is not restricted to funding alone
but extends to technical support, specifically, developing and strengthening all
program features including training and advocacy.
Program Interventions
Support of the education of migrant children by AIF and its partners is carried out
through three main types of interventions:
SITE SCHOOLS:
AIF’s partners set up and run site schools for migrant children in the destination
areas. These children are otherwise involved in multiple tasks to support household
subsistence, leaving them no time for leisure or schooling. This includes working at
work sites in some capacity as well as support to domestic chores and taking care of
infants, especially in the case of girls. The work sites covered under LAMP include
salt-pans, brick kilns, tile factories, location for herdsmen, temporary settlement
sites for fisherfolk in the case of Gujarat, and in the catchment cane-growing areas
in the case of sugar factories in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Southern Gujarat.
SEASONAL HOSTELS:
These have emerged as a preferred intervention for AIF since children in the hostels
stay away from the harsh work environment in the work sites and continuity of
education can be maintained at all times through the local formal schools. One
major strength of the hostels is that they are located in the village, thereby fostering
trust and assurance in the community; the villagers and families have easy access
to the children and children are free to visit their homes or the homes of their
relatives. However, seasonal hostels are naturally administratively more complex,
are more expensive to run, and require a greater degree of community support as
well as closer and more regular interaction with formal schools.
BRIDGE COURSES:
LAMP also supports bridge courses for dropped out children at its seasonal hostels
during a part of the migration cycle when children who migrate with their families
remain in the villages (usually about three months during June to September).
These courses are designed to assist these children re-enter schools and retain their
enrolments. Their success depends upon retaining these children in the hostels
during the next migration cycle.
Through AIF’s
LAMP, its partners
now directly
educate more than
30,000 children
every year in three
states and their
concerted advocacy
efforts have
moved the State
governments to
support and scale-
up these models
of education. This
has resulted in a
significant increase
in the number of
such children being
educated.
1 SITE
SCHOOLS
2 SEASONAL
HOSTELS
3 BRIDGE
COURSES
The support
given for the
education of
migrant children
by AIF and
its partners is
through three
main types of
interventions.
In all AIF’s education
initiatives with ‘left
out’ children, special
attention is given to
the girl child.
A site school for
Jait nomad children,
Jamnagar district,
Gujarat.
t

4 LAMP Partners
AIF’s idea has been to expose as many interested NGOs as possible in these migration prone geographies to the
issue of seasonal migration and the education program so that a critical mass is created for work to sustain in the
long run. The following NGO partners have been involved in the LAMP activities:
GUJARAT
Cohesion Foundation Trust (CFT), Kutchh
Centre for Social Knowledge and Action (Setu), Saurashtra
Yusuf Meherally Centre (YMC), Kutchh
MAHARASHTRA
Janarth, Aurangabad
ORISSA
Lokadrusti, Nuapada, and its consortium partners that include:
Rural and Tribal Development Agency (RTDA), Nuapada
People’s Awareness for Rural Development Agency (PARDA), Nuapada
Kalahandi Organization for Agriculture and Rural Marketing Initiative (KARMI), Kalahandi.
While the above partnerships have sustained, not all that were built have remained. Over the last five years,
AIF made partnership with six other NGOs (four in Bolangir, Orissa, two in Gujarat) which lasted for short periods
due to issues like lack of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) clearance and unsatisfactory performance.
The partner NGOs have different histories of involvement with the issue of education of migrant children. In the
case of Janarth, its engagement through shakharshalas predates its partnership with AIF. YMC was also involved in
site schools in collaboration with CARE since 2002. The other NGO partners were involved with issues pertaining
to migrants’ rights and rural livelihoods but became specifically involved with the education of migrant children
after discussion and partnership with AIF.
The focus of the education initiative has been on primary and middle education, which in Gujarat and
Maharashtra is for grades 1 to 7. The migration environment which each of the NGOs faces has its own specificities
and partly dictates the specific nature of intervention. Each of the partner NGOs carries out a portfolio of activities
and has its own set of objectives and regional coverage. These include rights based campaigns (YMC and Setu),
sustainable livelihood and environment initiatives (CFT), agricultural marketing support (Janarth), employment
and livelihoods (Lokadrusti), awareness drives (RTDA), and health and livelihood (PARDA).
There is some overlap in the past and present activity matrix of some of the organizations. For example, for Setu,
CFT and YMC, their post-earthquake rehabilitation work in Gujarat cemented their rapport with the community
in some of the villages. Lokadrusti’s migration related activities overlap with its livelihoods and self-help group
formation activities in nearly 60 per cent of the villages. For PARDA, there is a significant overlap between its
group formation (SHGs and youth groups), promotion of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA)
program and LAMP. Wherever this has been the case, the NGOs have derived considerable advantage. As education
providers, the partners have tried to dovetail this with their other activities, the most successful example being
ICDS in the case of Janarth.
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Maharashtra
Janarth, which is located in Aurangabad district in the Marathwada region of
Maharashtra has focused its efforts on labor migrants in one sector viz. sugarcane
harvesting. The migrants who are landless or marginal and small farmers come
from the arid and semi arid districts of Maharashtra which grow only a single
crop at best, and migrate for sugarcane cutting to sugarcane growing districts in
Maharashtra (principally, Western Maharashtra), neighboring districts in Karnataka,
and Southern Gujarat.
The migrant cutters are stratified into three groups.
‘Tyre centre’ workers: This group has the ability to own or hire bullocks
which they take to work sites. Their bullock carts have rubber tyres that are
provided by factories.
‘Gadi centre’ workers: This group takes its own bullock carts with wooden/
metal wheels to migration sites
‘Doki centre’ workers: They have no bullocks or carts.
The number of migrant workers from an area depends upon the conditions
in the source and the destination areas. Recruitments are mediated by labor
contractors who pay the worker families an advance before the beginning of
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According to
Janarth’s estimates,
sugarcane related
migration in
Maharashtra alone
involves about
650,000 adult
workers of which
200,000 are children
in the 6-14 age
group.
Sugarcane settlements
are in open unpro-
tected spaces where
animals and humans
live together in close
proximity. Men and
women cut the cane.
The children remove
the sugarcane tops.
The cane is then
bundled and carried on
the head by the adults
to the carts, that are
used to transport it to
the sugar factories.
The state has 186 sugar
factories each hiring
4000-6000 migrants.

each cutting season, which starts around November and ends sometime between
March and May. The amount of advance depends upon the number of workers
in each family unit, including the migrant children. The labor migration system
in Maharashtra is relatively formalized and organized and the cane-cutting rates
for the three categories of workers as well as the contractors are fixed on a year
to year basis.
At the cane-cutting sites, the workers live in shacks. Those that operate tyred carts tend to live in larger
congregations and in stable locations closest to the factory sites, often on factory land. Those who bring wooden
carts live in smaller settlements farther away from the factory on public or private land which decreases their
access to public services. Workers belonging to the doki centres, without any assets, do not settle at all but move
in the smallest congregations from place to place throughout the migration season, making the provision of
public services to them nearly impossible. Given the context of these sites, and the cooperation needed from
other stakeholders (factories, government and community), the program has focused on the larger worker
congregations (tyre centres) near the factories.
Janarth, which began its work among labor in-migrants has gradually extended its work across 13 districts in
Maharashtra, two neighbouring districts in Karnataka, and more recently to two districts in South Gujarat. It has
been able to map the flow of migrants in this sector and has now extended its work to several important source
districts. According to its estimates, sugarcane related migration in Maharashtra alone involves about 650,000
adult workers of which 200,000 are children in the 6-14 age group .
In its work outside Maharashtra, the challenge for Janarth has been to develop from scratch local networks and
contacts and interact with local government officials, although in Gujarat, Setu (another AIF LAMP partner) has
been able to support Janarth’s work in this direction. The Karnataka experience has been particularly harrowing
because of the simmering tension between the two State governments on the language issue. This has affected
the work of the NGO. In Gujarat, the students in the sakharshalas run by Janarth are tribals whose parents have
migrated from the tribal regions of central Maharashtra. The challenge is to get teachers from the tribal belt
who can speak the local language and understand the culture of the tribals and also be conversant with Marathi
because the texts and teaching-learning materials (TLMs) are all in Marathi.
Children of migrant
tribal workers going to
Janarth’s shakharshala
(school run at the work
site). The project covers
around 12,000 children.
Life at a Janarth-
run seasonal hostel for
children of migrating
sugarcane workers at
Sanghavi village, Beed
district, Maharashtra.
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Gujarat
The three Gujarat-based NGOs work in contiguous blocks in Rajkot, Jamnagar and
Kutchh districts of the state. Each of these organizations was involved in relief and
rehabilitation work in the area after the Gujarat earthquake of 2001 and later
turned their focus to other areas of work.
Setu’s work in LAMP is in two blocks (Maliya and Morvi) of Rajkot and one block
(Jodiya) of the Jamnagar district of Gujarat. Morvi town in Rajkot is an important
industrial cluster for roof tiles, ceramics and clocks. The migrants in these industries
and close by brick kilns are principally intra-state migrants from neighboring districts
but a small percentage are also from other states. Setu also works with migrants in
two other sectors: workers in salt-pans (both in source and destination areas) and
fisherfolk (who are displaced persons rather than seasonal migrants). Workers in
these two sectors are intra-district or inter-district migrants.
CFT’s work under LAMP again covers two blocks (Rapar and Bachhau) in Kutchh
district. It focuses principally on workers in salt-pans called Agariyas and pastoralists
called Maldharis.
YMC carries out its activities in Mundra and Gandhidham blocks of Kutchh
district. Like the other two organizations, it also focuses mainly on fisherfolk, salt-
pan workers, nomadic grazers and charcoal makers.
Thus each of the three organizations in Gujarat covers four types of migrant
labor: salt-pan workers, fisherfolk, nomadic grazers and charcoal makers, each
involving family-based mobility rooted in different communities and of different
types. Setu additionally covers labor in-migration to Morvi town, one of the largest
roof tile manufacturing hubs in India. Each of these migrations take place principally
within the state (intra-district or inter-district). Interventions are comparatively
the easiest if the migration is intra-district. In the case of inter-district migration,
interventions have to deal with some distinct issues such as language (the residents
of Kutchh who migrate to neighboring districts speak Kutchhi and not Gujarati).
The salt-pan workers constitute the largest group among the seasonal migrants.
The traditional salt-making community are the Kolis, also categorized as an Other
Backward Caste (OBC). Over time, other communities, including charcoal makers
have also become involved in salt making. The salt-pan workers belong to two
principal categories: lessees and wage workers. There is also a third, smaller category
of owner-workers. Salt-pans are either marine or inland (where the brine water
is pumped out). As in the other cases, the salt-pan workers rely on advances from
salt traders that are used both as consumption loans and working capital and sell
the produced salt to them at pre-fixed rates. The credit-product interlocking works
to the severe disadvantage of the salt workers leaving a large proportion of them
in a debt trap.
The working conditions in the salt-pans are unbelievably harsh. Workers live
in temporary shacks, in inhospitable conditions, and work without any protective
gear. The salt-pan work involves both the young and the old, male and female
workers in different processes right up to the sale of the crude salt. Setting up
site schools is most difficult in inland salt-pans given the temporary nature of the
work sites, which shift once the salt is over. As a result, getting teachers for inland
work site schools is a major challenge. Often the teachers themselves are part of
a migrating unit.
Each of the three
LAMP partners in
Gujarat covers four
types of migrant
labor: salt-pan
workers, fisherfolk,
nomadic grazers
and charcoal
makers.
The working
conditions in the salt-
pans are unbelievably
harsh. Workers live
in temporary shacks,
in inhospitable
conditions, and work
without any protective
gear. The salt-pan
work involves both
the young and the old.
t
The conditions
in the coastal belt
of the Gulf of Kutch
are so harsh that
the only sustainable
solution for childcare
and education is to
prevent children from
migrating to these
sites through retaining
them in the village in
seasonal hostels.
t

A site school run by Setu for Jait nomad children at Jodiya Taluk, Jamnagar
district, Gujarat, where they have settled. The Jait are traditionally a community
of nomadic grazers who do not belong to any particular state.
Children from Setu’s seasonal hostel for migrant brick kiln workers, going to
the village school in Amaran, Jamnagar district, Gujarat.
Boys at a seasonal hostel in Kutchh, run by Yusuf Meherally Centre at
Bhadreshwar (left) and Ranmal Ramji with his drawings of salt-pan work at a
seasonal hostel run by Setu in Solanki Nagar, Jamnagar, Gujarat. (right)
Khaleda and Afsana at a YMC-run site school for the Muslim Maachimaar
community at Luni Bunder, Kutchh, Gujarat.
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Orissa
Lokadrusti’s activities under LAMP are in three blocks of Nuapada district, Khariyar,
Boden and Sinapalli; two of its consortium partners, RTDA and PARDA work in
the remaining blocks of that district, viz. Komna and Nuapada; whereas it’s third
partner, KARMI works in Golamunda block of Kalahandi district. Recurrent droughts
over decades have necessitated out-migration from these districts, but organized
recruitment and migration to brick kilns in Andhra Pradesh, as well as other districts
of Orissa, which is now the predominant form of family-based migration from these
areas, is a more recent phenomenon, dating back to the mid-1990s.
Migration to the brick kilns is almost entirely based on organized recruitment
by labor contractors. Over time, a chain of labor contractors has emerged with
those at the lower ends belonging to the villages and often hailing from the same
communities as the migrants. Most of the area in Nuapada and Kalahandi is single
cropped, as irrigation levels are very low. Before the harvest festival of Nuakhai
held in early September, the contractors from Andhra Pradesh step in to recruit
labor by offering advances for a family unit, called a patri. The division of labor
in the brick kiln demands child workers along with male and female workers, and
the presence of at least one child in a team fetches a higher advance, while the
absence of a child, could lead to workers not being recruited for the kilns. Many
of the brick manufacturing operations—like making balls of wet clay, walking on
dried bricks to flip them and sorting coal—are left to the young children because
of their tiny hands and light bodies. They even carry loads of bricks.
Once advances are paid, workers wait for the final word from the contractor
and leave at very short notice as soon as required. Usually, out-migration begins
immediately after Nuakhai and workers start returning with their families
towards the end of May or in early June.
The brick kiln workers, including children, work 12 to 15 hours a day in
order to maximize their daily piece rate wages. Working and living conditions
are extremely poor and workers rely on weekly advances to meet their daily
requirements. Severe economic exploitation and sexual exploitation of women
workers is not unknown at the sites. Loans/advances are adjusted at the end
of the season, sometimes leaving a negative balance which the laborers have
to work out in the next season. From the laborer’s perspective, each additional
hand counts, either at the workplace, or in meeting the family requirements at
the living sites (cooking, taking care of infants).
Compared to the scenario in Maharashtra, the brick kiln migrants from
Orissa face several additional disadvantages. They are not organized and have
little bargaining power with the labor contractors, who are well organized,
resourceful, and usually well networked with the local administration. The
workers also work in an alien cultural/linguistic environment, subordinated to
the employers and labor contractors.
The division of
labor in the brick
kiln demands child
workers along with
male and female
workers, and the
presence of at least
one child in a team
fetches a higher
advance. Many of the
brick manufacturing
operations are left to
the young children
because of their
tiny hands and light
bodies.
Migrant workers
from Orissa working
at a brick kiln outside
Hyderabad. Children
not only work as many
hours as their parents,
they also suffer the
same verbal and
physical abuse.
t

Ganesh Sabar, a student at Lokadrusti’s
seasonal hostel at his home in the village. His
father, Dasrath Sabar, has returned from working
at the brick kiln. His grandmother and sister
stayed at home.
Ganesh’s fellow students enjoying themselves
at the Khirmal hostel.
t
t
Lokadrusti’s seasonal hostel, locally known as
Residential Care Centre, at Khamtarai. Sufficient
food, served hot to the children thrice a day, has
made their gaunt faces chubby and unrecognizable
for their parents!
Locally recruited youth teachers may be less
qualified, but make up for it with their enthusiasm
and commitment towards the children. When fear is
replaced with fun and friendliness, and interesting
activities and TLM brought in, learning gallops.
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A brief description of the main interventions and the challenges that AIF’s
partners face in the implementation of these interventions under LAMP.
Site Schools
Establishing site schools involves interaction with a number of stakeholders. Apart from
the children and their families, these include employers and local communities (wherever
these exist), formal schools in the destination and source areas, SSA authorities at all levels,
and other government departments, especially those in charge of free mid-day meals and
the Integrated Child Development Scheme.
Steps for setting up and running site schools
Need assessment: First, an assessment survey has to be done to determine the need
for the site school.
Advocacy campaign: Immediate stakeholders (employers, adult migrant workers, and
migrant children) have to be convinced that the children need to be in schools. While
employers see a social and economic cost to this, even for parents, the opportunity cost
of sending their children to school in the destination areas is high. For the children, by
and large, the gains outweigh costs, but even this may not always be the case, especially
for those who are earners.
Infrastructure support: In many situations, schools require employer support (where
employers are present) in terms of land or structures and/or basic facilities such as water.
In Janarth’s case, the NGO has used persistent advocacy and different sets of strategies
to persuade and involve the sugar factories to provide support to the schools. It has been
able to evoke a positive response, with the factories often providing land, temporary
structures, drinking water and electricity, and in some cases even accommodation for
teachers. With whatever support that they can get, the NGOs have to set up suitable
infrastructure for schooling, ideally involving adequate covered space, drinking water
and sanitation facilities.
5 Interventions
Challenges
t
Students at a
YMC-run site school
for children of a
fishing community
in Kutchh, Gujarat.

Teacher recruitment: Teachers with adequate qualifications and motivation to work
in the harsh work site conditions have to be recruited. These conditions are very difficult
to meet, especially as financial and other incentives offered under the program are low
even though they are higher than those available under government benchmarks.
School facilities and incentives: Ideally, NGOs would like to see these children receiving
the same entitlements as local school-going children in terms of facilities and incentives
(uniforms, text books, scholarships, mid-day meals). For this, an institutional arrangement
has to be developed in conjunction with the government department, so that the site
schools are treated either as schools or adjunct schools (with the children’s attendance
being transferred to the local schools). This requires a large measure of coordination with
the local schools, the education system (cluster and block level, as well as district level)
and advocacy at the State level in the first instance, as well as support from the Village
Education Committees (VECs) which are mandated to monitor the performance of schools
under local jurisdiction.
Student enrollment and records: Children at site schools (if of the school-going age)
may or may not be enrolled in schools in the areas of origin. Girls, in particular, are likely
to have dropped out on approaching puberty. For the children who are enrolled in schools
in the areas of origin, a modality has to be developed by which their enrolment and
attendance records can be transferred between the schools in which they are enrolled
in the areas of origin and the local formal schools near their destinations. This is quite
a complex procedure, more so when the students are inter-district, or even inter-state
migrants. Here coordination needs to extend across district or state boundaries, involving
the support of the systems in those areas, as well as at higher levels. Maintaining linkages
with the village schools is nearly impossible in such cases. Creating a proper teaching-learning environment: This involves, training,
monitoring, providing moral support, provision of teaching-learning material etc.
It needs to be noted that site schools do not necessarily deal with the same set of
children year after year as parents change sites and the pattern of migration varies.
Dealing with new children at different stages of education can make the task of
teachers quite difficult.
These general measures have been incorporated in the work sites by the NGO
partners in somewhat different ways and with different degrees of effectiveness
and innovativeness. For instance:
Janarth has focused on providing a minimum level of benchmarked facilities
and infrastructure at its site schools, with the support of factories, which includes
classrooms, toilets, electricity and a demarcated area which can serve as a play
ground.
CFT has been able to provide solar panels for electricity at its remote site
schools.
Setu has tried advocacy successfully with employers’ associations in Morvi and
individual employers have extended support by providing classrooms and basic
facilities for the site schools.
YMC has involved a local welfare trust to help with the hostel facilities for
older children.
Uptil 2008
December, the AIF
partners had been
able to educate
15,844 children in
253 site schools,
of which the lion’s
share was achieved
by Janarth (11,500
in 120 site schools).
NGOs State Work Site Schools Children
Janarth Maharashtra 120 11500
Setu Gujarat 74 2409
CFT Gujarat 32 1053
YMC Gujarat 27 882
Total 253 15844
SITE SCHOOLS RUN BY LAMP PARTNERS - DEC.2008
* Lokadrusti and its partners have not been directly involved with running site schools,
although as part of an Action Aid initiative supported by AIF (not financially) for two years,
they have set up Makarkheda Samitis in their areas and have facilitated site schools at the
Andhra brick kilns.
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A shakarshala
run by Janarth for
the children of
migrant sugarcane
workers in
Maharashtra.
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Seasonal Hostels and Bridge Courses
Currently, all AIF partners are involved in running seasonal hostels for the children of migrants, who would
have otherwise accompanied them to the work sites. However, due to a shift in policy in Orissa, since February
2009, Lokadrusti and its consortium partners are providing support to the hostel residents which are now being
managed by the Village Education Committees (VECs).
Seasonal hostels are set up by the NGO partners in the areas of migrants’ origin, to provide staying facilities for
migrants’ school-age children during the period that the parents migrate for work. This could be 6 to 8 months
in different locations. Seasonal hostels, therefore, impose higher opportunity costs on the parents and require a
much greater degree of understanding by the NGOs of local social structures, as well as a high level of community
support. Bridge courses, run by CFT, Setu and the Lokadrusti consortium, serve the purpose of easing the re-entry
of migrant children into schools.
Steps for setting up and running seasonal hostels
Need assessment and advocacy: As in the case of the work site schools, the first phase of setting up a seasonal
hostel has to be a needs assessment combined with patient advocacy amongst the stakeholders (migrants and
local community) which can ensure that migrants are willing to leave their children behind in the hostels, and
they and/or the local community would be willing to support the hostels in multiple ways.
Hostel infrastructure: Once it appears that there is sufficient need for such a
hostel, the space to run the hostel is a prime requirement. This can be either homes
of migrants or other residents or community structures which can be subject to
single or dual use (say, a school or a panchayat building doubling up as a hostel). The
proportion of public buildings in use as hostels varies between states and partners.
In Orissa, the hostels (called Residential Care Centres or RCCs) are necessarily located
in school buildings. But both public and private buildings have minimal space and
facilities, sometimes a single hall, with a curtain demarcating the spaces for girls
and boys, and sometimes no bath rooms.
24-hour care: Unlike the site schools, the seasonal hostels require 24-hour support
and heavy responsibilities which include providing protection to the hostel inmates
and taking measures in contingencies such as illnesses or accidents. This can be a
serious issue and the responsibility on the coordinators is heavy. Lokadrusti and its
partners have developed a model to help minimize some of this risk by mooting a
general insurance coverage for the inmates. This, however, at best, takes care only
of the financial side of the risk. The hostels are looked after by coordinators and
helpers/cooks. The coordinators also double up as tutors/instructors. Normally two
persons (one male and one female) are expected to be with the children during
sleeping hours.
Hostel Coordinators: The hostel coordinators are the fulcrum of the hostels. Each
of the NGOs makes an effort to recruit teachers from backgrounds where they can
easily cohabit and build rapport with the inmates. But finding those with requisite
qualifications and social backgrounds is not easy, and the gender balance is almost
always tilted in favour of male recruits.
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Students
of Lokadrusti’s
Kampur seasonal
hostel on an
awareness march
in the village to
get children to
school. Nuapada
district, Orissa.
t
The hostel
coordinator is
the fulcrum of a
seasonal hostel.
Hiraben Acharya
with the residents
of a seasonal hostel
for girls run by YMC
in Bhadeshwar,
Kutchh, Gujarat.
Hostels increase
regular attendance
in schools and also
raise the demand
for better teaching.
NGOs have been
involved with
enrollment drives
and hostel inmates
participate in
activities that draw
the attention of the
village community
towards schooling.

Responsibilities placed on these coordinators are multi-faceted and
extraordinarily heavy, even if some are partly shared by the supervisory layers.
Those that are resident have duties that literally span the clock and include almost
continuous interaction with the students, except when they are at school, at
which time, activities such as purchases of supplies and record-keeping take over.
During school hours coordinators also double up in some of the areas as teachers
to help the primary teachers with their work load or fill in when they are absent.
The coordinators have to manage the relationships mentioned above, participate
in all the activities with the students, and also engage in tutoring them. This last
activity has grown more demanding in the case of hostels which have been specially
selected under the program for upgradation of learning quality.
Relationship between the seasonal hostel and the local school
The hostel children are necessarily enrolled in the local government formal schools
and the partners try to maintain the hostels as an active hub for promoting
education more generally in the village. This leads to a complex relationship
between the hostels (and the partners running them) and the formal schools, which
also necessitates that certain steps be taken to nurture a healthy complementary
relationship between the schools and the hostels. Some of the issues underlying
the relationship between the SH and the schools and the strategies developed
under the program to address them are as follows:
The mandate of the hostels is to encourage regular and possibly better teaching
in schools. Hostels increase regular attendance in schools and also raise the demand
for better teaching. NGOs have been involved in enrolment drives and hostel
inmates participate in activities to draw the attention of the village community
towards schooling. Students in the Lokadrusti hostels participate in prabhat pheris
(morning parades) singing songs regarding the importance of schooling. Hostel
students are given supplementary instructions, which could set a benchmark for
teaching-learning in the schools (there are instances of hostel students in Gujarat,
from very deprived backgrounds doing extremely well).
The increase in demand for schooling puts greater pressure on teachers in
formal school to be regular and to perform well. In LAMP project areas in Orissa,
teacher absenteeism is said to have declined from 60-80 per cent to 20-40 per
cent. While this obviously has a healthy implication for schooling, it could meet
with some resistance. This is more the case because hostel coordinators have lower
formal qualifications and both the coordinators and the hostel residents belong
to socially deprived backgrounds.
To counter this, NGOs have tried to work on improving the supply side situation
by putting pressure on governments to fill vacancies and increase recruitments.
This has worked partially in both Orissa and Gujarat.
Some of the NGOs (YMC in Gujarat and Lokadrusti in Orissa) have tried to
alleviate the pressure on teachers (especially where schools are short-staffed as in
Hostels provide
facilities which
include meals,
hair oil and soap,
supplementary
instruction as well
as sports/games. In
a poor community,
these opportunities
are often not
available to the
non-inmates. The
need to bridge
this disparity is
acknowledged
across the board by
the partner NGOs.
Some NGOs have
ensured a larger
participation by
allowing non-inmate
children to take
supplementary
instruction and
participate in the
games so that the
hostels are not seen
as separate enclaves
where privileges are
being bestowed on
a group of children.
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A coaching class
in session, attended
by children from the
hostel run by Setu
as well as children
from the village.
Karchiya, Rajkot
district, Gujarat.
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Western Orissa) by asking their hostel coordinators to assist in teaching. This, however,
raises the possibility that formal school teachers who are already used to hierarchical
relationships within the school (with head teachers, assistant teachers and contract
teachers) may see the hostel coordinators, who generally have lower formal qualifications
as yet another level in the hierarchy and try to subject them to a relationship of
subordination, and may even assign other duties to them in the formal school. In Orissa,
hostel coordinators had now received instructions from Lokadrusti not to assist teachers
with their teaching duties.
NGOs have also pressured governments to improve school infrastructure. Particularly,
where school buildings are in use as hostels, pressure has been used to improve
infrastructure, especially toilets and provision of drinking water.
Hostels provide a certain benchmark level of facilities to the students, which include
meals, hair oil and soap, supplementary instruction as well as sports/games. In a poor
community, these facilities/opportunities are often not available to the non-inmates,
both young and old. The need to bridge this disparity is acknowledged across the board
by the NGOs. One way that has been addressed is to allow non-inmate children to take
supplementary instruction and participate in the sports, games and competitions so that
the hostels are not seen as separate enclaves where privileges are being bestowed
on a group of children.
In order to improve the relationship with the schools, NGOs like Setu have
located library resources in schools so that these are available to the larger
community of students.
Some NGOs have ensured a larger participation whereas others may not have
done so actively. But wherever other children participate, the parents are happy
for the extra inputs for their children and do not mind supporting the hostel. The
considered view is that this has helped. But still, problems do emerge. In very poor
areas, food is coveted not only by the young but even by the adults and hostel
coordinators have to evolve methods to keep such adults away. In Orissa upper caste
families found the migrant children being fed better than their own children. In
many villages there was a protest against this and pressure to allow other children
to be fed in the hostel. Lokadrusti has allowed two orphans to stay in the hostels,
but pressure to keep other children continues.
Villagers watch
their children play
at a seasonal hostel
run by the Cohesion
Foundation Trust in
Kutchh, Gujarat.
The villagers’ access to
the hostels helps foster
trust between the
village community and
the NGO.
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NGOs State Seasonal Hostels Children Bridge Course Children
Janarth Maharashtra 40 1887 – –
Setu Gujarat 37 1113 27 812
CFT Gujarat 46 1466 22 660
YMC Gujarat 12 314 – –
Lokadrusti’s Orissa 52 1301 52 1736
Consortium
Total 187 6081 101 3208
SEASONAL HOSTELS BRIDGE COURSES RUN BY LAMP PARTNERS – DEC.2008
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The increase
in demand for
schooling puts
greater pressure
on teachers
in formal
schools to be
regular and to
perform well. In
Orissa, teacher
absenteeism
is said to have
declined from
60-80 per cent to
20-40 per cent.

Relationship between the NGOs and migrant community
The relationship and rapport of NGOs with migrant workers needs to be carefully
nurtured. The migrant community is not always socially homogenous. Where
migrants belong to more than one community with distinct cultural differences (for
example with respect to vegetarianism), asking children to eat, live and sleep under
one roof may not be culturally acceptable to the concerned communities. When
faced with this situation, NGOs have responded in different ways, more often than
not by catering to the main migrant community, or setting up (if numbers permit)
more than one hostel on a socially segregated basis. Only Setu has consistently
followed the principle of one hostel to cater to all communities, which requires
much more social mobilization.
Support of the village community
Hostels cannot function without support of the local communities. Local community
leadership, particularly the leadership of the village bodies (panchayats) more
often than not, rests with dominant communities/households in the village while
the seasonal migrants come from the most vulnerable and weak communities. The
village leadership has no natural stake in the hostels or in bringing the children of
the migrant workers to school. Again, persistent mobilization is required to create
such an interest and stake. But there may always be sources of conflict, as for
instance in cases where the village bodies can theoretically seek funding to run the
hostels under government programs (in these cases permission/approval is required
from the VEC before the NGO can set up a hostel, which may not be forthcoming).
Apart from the minimum support levels which are in any case required, the NGOs
also try to involve the community in providing other levels of support, for instance
for drinking water and electricity.
We found the role of the community to be stronger and more meaningful
in villages where the NGOs had a history of organization-building and group
formation. For example, in Orissa, Lokadrusti and PARDA have self-help groups,
Makharkheda (drought mitigation) committees, and youth organizations in some
of the villages in which LAMP is being implemented. The active members of these
groups/committees provide a strong group of core support to various aspects of
the program, including mobilization and advocacy among the migrants, support
in running the hostels, and updating the village migration register.
On the whole, the hostels have definitely brought attention of the village
community to education, activated the SSA officials to ensure greater monitoring
and set a benchmark for improved child care and education. Despite possibilities of
friction, the relationship between the local school and SH in a village has evolved
from one of indifference to a more positive one of give and take.
6 Assessment of
LAMP
Programme Management and Supervision
The program organizational structure in all cases is as follows: There is a program-in-charge, who may also have
some other concurrent responsibilities in the NGO. The program-in-charge manages the education program
supported by AIF and is supported by the chief executive of the NGO (the nomenclature is different and varies
between the NGOs) and office adminstration for record keeping, accounts etc. There are area coordinators,
managing the program in a large jurisdiction such as a block, or as in the case of Janarth, districts or groups of
districts. Supervisors work under the area coordinators and supervise and monitor the performance of a group
of site schools or hostels. The hostel coordinators and the teachers in site schools have specific record keeping
responsibilities and these records form the core data maintained by the organization.
On the whole, the
seasonal hostels
have definitely
brought the
attention of the
village community
to education,
activated the
SSA officials to
ensure greater
monitoring and
set a benchmark
for improved child
care and education.
Despite possibilities
of friction, the
relationship
between the local
school and hostel
in a village has
evolved from one
of indifference to a
more positive one
of give and take.

In Gujarat, the site schools have a single class with 30 students and one teacher; the unit size of hostels is also
the same with one coordinator and one helper. In Janarth the unit sizes are usually bigger. The site schools usually
have about 100 students and 4 teachers, one for each grade, along with a helper to maintain cleanliness. The
hostels too have 50-60 students with 2 coordinators and 2 cooks. Each of the partners provides for giving wider
responsibilities (promotions) to well performing teachers/coordinators. These policies were most consciously pursued
by Setu and CFT. As regards maintaining a gender and social balance among its staff, including senior supervisory
staff, the record of Setu appeared to be most effective.
Records are maintained by all NGOs for internal purposes as well as to meet the requirements of the
education department. Formats of the different partners were compared. In almost all cases these records were
well maintained. The migration register maintained in the Setu site schools which contained specific migration
histories, including cases of multiple migration, were particularly impressive. Equally impressive are the village
migration registers maintained in Orissa, which in many cases were the responsibility of the Makharkheda (drought
mitigation) committees. However, records examined in the case of YMC were not complete in some of the site
schools visited.
The level of decentralization practised by each of these organizations varies. CFT has offices in each of its
operational blocks. No doubt this has also been made possible because CFT is able to dovetail its education
program with livelihood, environment and other programs in the same blocks. As a result, record keeping is also
decentralized to the blocks. This clearly makes it possible for coordinators to use records to monitor activities in
their jurisdictions and also develop local competency in handling information technology tools. Setu maintains
a well functioning local office, but computerized record keeping is still done in its Ahmedabad office. YMC is a
Kutchh-based organization and its records are maintained at its head office in Bhadeshwar village. Despite its large
coverage, Janarth’s activities are still centralized in its Aurangabad office. Lokadrusti’s office is located in one of the
three blocks (Khariar) in which LAMP is being implemented and the supervisory staff works out of this office.
Planning and Need Assessment
Large-scale surveys of migrant communities have provided the base on which the partners have planned their
activities. But these are usually either general surveys or baseline surveys. Since migration varies from village to
village and from season to season, each year the NGOs also carry out specific surveys. These are done in villages
for seasonal hostels, and in work site areas for site schools for planning expansion. In existing areas of work the
surveys are carried out to estimate the demand for activities. These surveys are generally carried out with the help
of the teachers who are retained for this work under the coordination of the supervisory staff but in Orissa the
Makarkheda committees also assist in the updating of the migration registers.
Although in principle, areas of expansion could be contiguous villages in a block or new blocks, such surveys
have to initially rely on third party information and are difficult to implement. Secondly, planning could be
hazardous as the base conditions which determine migration (for example, rainfall in the origin villages) could be
different from the conditions visualized. This has been mentioned by Setu as one of the reasons the organization
could not implement its planned expansion in 2007-08. However, given the large gap between the targets set by
the organization and actual implementation, it is likely that there were also lacunae in the baseline assessments
made by the organization.
Existing limitations notwithstanding, in most cases the surveys have provided a
concrete input to the planning process, which help NGOs to take stock of of their
own outlay as well as external resources. However, in YMC’s case, their expansion
in far-off blocks appears to have occurred more out of a desire to cover a diversity
of migration experience in Kutchh rather than out of a careful consideration of
the marshalling of the resources at its disposal.
Database on Migration and Affected Children
Migration surveys carried out by the NGOs or supported by them form a huge
compendium of information on seasonal migration in each of the areas. Some
of these are sector specific and some are designed as planning tools. The sector
specific migration studies, notably of sugarcane cutters in Maharashtra and salt-pan
workers in Gujarat are extremely important, providing valuable data and insights
into these migrations. However, we do not have surveys dealing with aggregate
migration inflows and outflows going beyond the sectors addressed by LAMP.
A migrant family,
who have just arrived
at a sugar factory in
Maharashtra.
t

Further, with the exception of the village migration registers in Orissa, the smaller
and more regular village surveys are focused on gathering data on the ‘demand’
for the site schools or the seasonal hostels and hence concentrate on the modal
migration stream(s), often (as with YMC) of the one community which is most
involved in seasonal migration. The surveys do not ordinarily provide an assessment
of the totality of the problem i.e. what is the status of the school-aged children
whether of migrants or non-migrants; who are the children currently out of school;
what is the gender, social and age composition; how many individuals/households
migrate; to what occupations/sites; what is the status of their children etc. In other
words, although the surveys are useful in the context of assessing the potential
demand for the activity being planned, they offer a segmented and partial view of
the problems at hand—children accessing education; and the totality of migration.
This problem is more acute in the case of hostels whereas work site surveys being
confined to a group of migrant workers are more adequate. This is not to say that
NGOs take an exclusive view. Some, like Setu, are involved in micro-planning and
‘school chalo’ (come to school) campaigns for all children.
However, the village migration registers in Orissa are an invaluable source of
information. These registers carry a census of the village population, land size, caste,
occupation, the persons migrating each year, the destinations and the industries to
which they have migrated, information on labor contractors and advance taken;
amount earned or remitted, and comments on migration experience. They are
updated twice or thrice during the year—before, during, and after the migration
season. The registers contain panel data on the households over several years.
They show very clearly the extent to which migration in the village is male-only or
family-based and whether the children participated in migration. Taken together
with the hostel records, they allow us to quantify clearly the extent to which the
residential hostels have been able to wean away the children from family-based
migration. This wealth of information is yet to be analyzed. A quick analysis shows
that in four of the five blocks in Nuapada the dominant family migration stream
is indeed towards brick kilns in Andhra Pradesh, but in Nuapada block, adjoining
Chhatisgarh, the family migration is principally to Uttar Pradesh. The registers also
indicate that there is a high proportion of male-only migration from these areas
towards Maharashtra, Gujarat, Chhatisgarh and other districts of Orissa. Although
family migration affects children directly, one would like to know which families
and work sectors are prone to male-only migration and whether such migration
also has some implications for the children’s education.
AIF’s partner NGOs have marshalled a lot of information and the surveys carried
out by them provide very useful information on the type of migration with which
they are most concerned. But on a broader plane, except for Janarth to some extent,
information on different types of migration, the relationship between migration
and child education status, and a comprehensive database on the educational status
of children in the selected villages is still lacking (or where some of the relevant
information exists, has not been analyzed fully).
There is another data related issue due to which the impact of the program
cannot be measured easily. As mentioned earlier, school-aged children in official
records are usually categorised as ‘enrolled’, ‘never enrolled’ and ‘dropped out’.
But school records invariably mention a very high percentage of children as being
‘enrolled’ even when these children do not attend school for most months in a year
or in some cases, do not even take examinations but are automatically promoted.
Thus school records overstate enrolments and understate ‘never enrolled’ and
‘drop outs’. The Government of India in its elaboration of programs on Education
Guarantee Scheme (EGS) and Schemes for Alternative and Innovative Education
(AIE) has used a wider definition of ‘dropped out’ which includes children who
have not been attending school for a prolonged period of time. Consistent with
this, AIF partners use the de facto status of the students to categorize them as
‘never enrolled’ or ‘dropped out’ but this differs from the official picture. While
this is part of a larger issue, the more genuine distinction seems to be (on the
input side) between ‘regular attendees’, ‘irregular attendees’ and ‘non attendees’
in a school year (the latter two being non-enrolled and dropped out children), for
which indicators need to be developed and supplemented with performance based
(outcome) indicators.
The village
migration registers
in Orissa are an
invaluable source of
information. Taken
together with the
hostel records, they
allow us to quantify
clearly the extent to
which the seasonal
hostels have been able
to wean away the
children from family-
based migration.
AIF’s partner NGOs
have marshalled a
lot of information
and the surveys
carried out by them
provide very useful
information on the
type of migration
with which they are
most concerned.
But on a broader
plane, except for
Janarth to some
extent, information
on different types
of migration,
the relationship
between migration
and child education
status, and a
comprehensive
database on the
educational status
of children in the
selected villages
is still lacking
(or where some
of the relevant
information exists,
has not been
analyzed fully).
t
Brick Kiln Migration
Western OrissaTo
Andhra Pradesh

Teaching Infrastructure
Compared to formal schools where teaching aids and books were available but rarely
used, we found that site schools and hostels had a variety of teaching aids which were,
in most cases, used more frequently by the students who also demonstrated considerable
familiarity in using them. In some of Janarth’s schools and hostels, laptops had been
provided in 2009 and were a great source of attraction for the students. As was the
case with the laboratories set up in the shakharshalas.
Teachers and Hostel Coordinators
The fulcrum of the teaching-learning process is the teacher. Recruitment of teachers
with suitable qualifications, providing them with sufficient motivation, incentives and
training and enabling them to engage the first generation learners meaningfully is
undoubtedly a huge challenge in a project of this kind.
Janarth, as mentioned before, is an exception with larger site schools and hostels
and has been able to place one teacher per grade in the SSs and generally two
coordinators per hostels. But in the case of all other partners, the SSs and SHs have a
single teacher typically catering to children of 5 grades and sometimes even 7. While
there is an effort on the part of AIF to maintain the teacher-pupil ratio at 1:25, in a
number of cases observed in both SSA and SSA/AIF-funded schools/hostels, the number
of students was more than this norm. Almost all the partners feel that at least in the
larger hostels the number of coordinators should be more than one, and perhaps their
responsibilities could be split. The AIF norm is that beyond 30 students, a second staff
may be considered.
The salaries for teachers and coordinators in the program fixed under the AIE or
EGS schemes of the State governments are low, in some cases as low as Rs 1000 per
month. However, AIF ‘tops up’ these salaries wherever necessary to ensure payment of
a minimum of Rs 2500 as a salary to a SS teacher or a SH coordinator. These salaries are
still low, on par with those provided to contract teachers (called para-teachers) in many
states. And even the limited incentives which some State governments provide to their
contract teachers cannot be provided by AIF (for example, the Gujarat government
absorbs the contract teachers in the regular cadre after five years). Finding teachers
with requisite qualifications at these salaries is difficult in most areas. The difficulty
is compounded by the tough conditions under which these teachers/coordinators are
expected to perform, and the temporary nature of their jobs. The salary of the hostel
coordinators, who perform multiple responsibilities and work very long hours, is not
at all commensurate with their responsibilities. Moreover, alternative employment
opportunities—quite high in some of the areas—also make the task of finding teachers
with adequate qualifications, and then retaining them, more difficult.
Physical Infrastructure in Schools and Hostels
The schools and hostels function in diverse contexts and it is not possible a priori
to fix a minimum set of benchmarks which should be met by them. Nonetheless,
at this stage of the program it is worth considering whether internal norms should
be evolved. (The SSA has external norms in Maharashtra which according to the
Janarth director were unrealistic given the ground reality.)
The basic requirements are of adequate physical space, availablility of potable
water, toilets, protection from inclement weather, separate sleeping arrangements,
baths and minimum standards in served meals. While the NGOs have taken care to
provide some minimum amenities such as drinking water, covered space, first aid
kits etc, this varied from place to place and was barely rudimentary in some places.
Some of the NGOs have specified their own minimum standards. CFT has tried to
ensure that electricity is available in all locations (it has provided for solar based
systems in collaboration with another NGO even in remote locations). Janarth,
too has tried to provide all basic infrastructure in its shakharshalas. Nevertheless,
there are gaps. Separate sleeping arrangements are not available for boys and
girls everywhere, nor are female coordinators available for the female inmates
everywhere, although a male coordinator is teamed with a female cook. (This has
been addressed subsequently by AIF.)
Meals, however, are the highpoint for the children in the hostels. Wherever
we asked the children, they rated their meals as the most attractive feature of
hostel life.
Meals are the
highpoint for the
children in the
hostels. Wherever
asked the children
rated their meals as
the most attractive
feature of hostel life.
At a Janarth-run
seasonal hostel for
children of sugarcane
workers at Sanghavi
village, Beed district,
Maharashtra.
t
Finding teachers
with requisite
qualifications
at low salaries
is difficult in
most areas.
The problem is
compounded
by the difficult
conditions
under which
these teachers/
coordinators
are expected to
perform, and the
temporary nature
of their jobs. By
the time a new
recruit in October
comes to grips
with the work, it
is almost time for
the SS/SH to close
in April-May.

After trial and error, now most groups insist on classroom teaching for the candidate before the final round of
selection to ensure that the teacher is good at communicating with the young students. In Lokadrusti and YMC,
candidates are observed for one week in the classroom to see how the trainee plans the lessons, handles the
class and so forth. The most desired qualification, held by all the NGOs, is whether the candidate understands
and is sensitive to the specific situation of the migrant children and the local community.
The transient nature of the job does not encourage commitment or lend depth to the work. By the time
a new recruit in October comes to grips with the work, it is almost time for the SS/SH to fold up in April-May.
It is difficult to get teachers in Kutchh, as after the earthquake there are new industries that offer many job
opportunities, and the NGO cannot match the salary.
The difficulty in finding suitable teachers/hostel coordinators is reflected in the fact that some of them do
not even have high school qualifications. This would make it difficult for them to provide proper education
to students. However, this also points to the dire need for training the teachers. Janarth makes provision for a
prolonged in-house training for 30-40 days for teachers from the tribal belt. CFT provides a short 5-day inception
training, followed by subject training in Science and Mathematics, as well as on themes such as human rights
and rights-based development. YMC provides for a month-long in-house training. In addition AIF connected
all 3 Gujarat partners with Aga Khan Education Services, India, (AKESI) based in Rajkot, for training. Similarly,
Lokadrusti and its partners were connected with Vikramshila, a NGO based in Kolkata.
All the NGOs also provide on-site support through supervisory staff and through regular meetings and peer
interaction. There is undoubtedly a clear difference observable in the field between teachers who have undergone
one or more modules of training and those who have not.
A questionaire filled by the schools visited revealed that in most cases students showed a degree of confidence
and improved learning. The performance varied across NGOs, and in the sample seen, appeared to be weaker
in the Lokadrusti and YMC schools. The baseline of Lokadrusti areas is, however, significantly lower than other
partner areas. In general, the situation is better off in Gujarat and Maharashtra, even in their backward districts
as compared to tribal Orissa.
The hostel coordinators are employed for 12 months as they are village based and
work can be generated for them throughout the year. In contrast, site school teachers are
employed for only 6-8 migration months, after which the schools close and there is no
work for them at the sites. This pushes up their turnover rates. In Maharashtra the turnover
rate is as high as 70 per cent. It is probably as expensive to re-recruit and re-train teachers
every year as it would be to retain them for 12 months. But it is a no-win situation for
NGOs. This is why AIF and its partners are keen that SS are attached to local schools with
teachers appointed by the government and trained and monitored by the NGO.
The duration of the schools and hostels is the shortest in the case of Janarth (only 7
months), which is why they repeat the recruitment process each year. Different NGOs follow
different recruitment priorities and norms. For example, while most of the NGOs prefer to
recruit local teachers/coordiantors, Janarth, as a matter of principle recruits non-locals. In
making local recruitments, the NGOs give different weights to the preference of the local
community and their own judgment. Lokadrusti and its partners in fact involve the local
community in the selection of the hostel coordinator. Clearly the initial focus in Orissa
was on managing the hostels, but since 2006-07, they advertise teacher-cum-coordinator
positions for their hostels.
Initially some NGOs tried to recruit by advertising for the teachers’ posts. They soon
realized the difficulties. Janarth found that few in the tribal belt read the newspapers;
they switched to handbill distribution during the weekly market. The other groups too felt
advertising was ineffective because the candidates had no clue about the work conditions
nor about the children they had to mentor. Some left the job within 2 days, the brave left
after 2 months. It was at this juncture, that the NGOs decided to select candidates from
the local community.
Teachers
undergo training
at the Lokadrusti
office at Kharia,
Nuapada district,
Orissa.
There is a dire
need for training
teachers, and all
the NGOs run
periodic training
programs for them.
t
A packed
classroom of
enthusiastic
children of migrant
sugarcane workers
at a site school
run by Janarth in
Maharashtra.
t
While there is
an effort on the
part of AIF to
maintain the
teacher-pupil
ratio at 1:25,
in a number of
cases observed
in both SSA
and SSA/AIF-
funded schools
and hostels,
the number of
students was
more than this
norm.

Gender Issues and Social Inclusion
The extent to which NGO partners have addressed gender and social barriers varies. In
Gujarat, Setu has worked in a principled way to overcome it at all levels of its work. On
the other hand, YMC, partly because of its history of focusing on a single community
(fisherfolk), appeared to make the least effort to provide socially inclusive hostels. Despite
some encouraging success stories, and some improvement over the initial years, gender
gaps in enrollment in SSs and SHs remain high. The figures show that these gaps are wider
at higher stages of school. Cultural barriers were clearly more pronounced in Gujarat than
in rural Maharashtra or Orissa. But other factors, such as the pressure to support families
by taking up domestic responsibilities either at work sites or at home also contributed
to this gap.
Gender gaps were pronounced not only for students but also for coordinators and
teachers. Given that cultural barriers and availability of educated female teachers varied
from area to area, it is difficult to separate out NGO strategy from the social context, but
we did find that only some NGOs, noticeably Setu, strive to reduce gender gaps. In its
case the percentage of women among teachers, supervisors and coordinators was 40 per
cent, 25 per cent and 33 per cent respectively. In Janarth’s case, 26 per cent of its teachers
were women.
For the program to achieve its own objectives, gender outcomes need to be worked
upon and improved.
A Pilot Initiative to Improve the Quality of
Learning
Our assessment of the impact of LAMP on the learning ability of hostel students is
positive. But AIF has been rightly concerned that education provided to the children in
the program ought to meet higher quality standards so that students and their parents
continue to retain an interest in schooling. AIF has started a new quality initiative under
which children in selected hostels (five with each partner) are carefully graded in terms
of their learning skills. The aim is to ensure that each student initially achieves grade 2
competency. The tests show that a fairly significant percentage of older children could
not show even this level of competency. The coordinators in the SHs, with the support
of supervisors assigned for the task are engaged in upgrading the educational abilities
of the children through the methodologies imparted to them in training and they claim
that repeated tests within a month have already begun showing positive results. Partners
feel that the improved learning of the hostel children has begun to create a ripple effect
even in the formal schools. Many of the partners, for example, Lokadrusti, have already
undertaken measures to upscale this pilot and we are given to understand that AIF would
like to retain a focus on the quality learning initiative.
Nonetheless, this approach needs to take cognizance of some issues which may need
to be addressed.
First, the hostels are an ideal site only for supplementary instruction, particularly if
some instruction is not to crowd out other forms of learning/activity by the children. The
children’s daily time table allows only for a few hours of such instruction.
Second, this puts exceptional demands on the coordinators’ time and skills. At present,
the quality checks are confined to grade 2 competency. As this moves to higher grades,
there would be an enhanced demand on the coordinators whose own learning levels
are quite limited. We have already noted that coordinators are overburdened and also
Setu has
worked in a
principled way
to overcome
gender and
social barriers
at all levels
of its work.
Despite some
success stories
gender gaps in
enrollment in
site schools and
hostels remain
high across
partners.
Under AIF’s pilot
initiative to
improve learning,
the coordinators
in the SHs, with
the support of
supervisors, are
now engaged
in upgrading
the educational
abilities of the
children through
the methodologies
imparted to them
in training. Partners
feel that the
improved learning
of the hostel
children has begun
to create a ripple
effect even in the
formal schools.
A seasonal
hostel for boys
and girls run by
Setu in Kharchiya,
Rajkot district,
Gujarat. Cultural
barriers were more
pronounced in
Gujarat than in
rural Maharashtra
or Orissa.
l
l
t
Janarth Setu CFT YMC Lokadrusti
SITE SCHOOLS 47 47.7 43.7 39.6 –
SEASONAL HOSTELS 43 38 31.6 11.1 34.6
PERCENTAGE OF GIRLS IN THE PROGRAM – 2008 - 2009

a small percentage who have graduated from the system). The overall figures from
Orissa show a low continuation rate of 31 per cent from the last to the current year in
the hostels. We examined the oldest seasonal hostel in Nuapada which is also piloting
the quality initiative. Only 18 per cent of the students who were in the hostel in 2004-05
were also inmates in 2008-09. While some graduated, the majority dropped out or re-
entered migration. Thus while the percentage of students that is retained from year to
year in the hostels varies between hostels and regions, the retention rates are a cause
of concern and only a careful assessment of their numbers and stability would provide
a firmer basis for the initiative.
Similar issues of stability also arise with respect to the teachers. As shown earlier,
there is a problem of turnover of teachers, although variable between NGOs. While Setu
reported that 93 per cent of its teachers were retained from last year, the figures were
smaller for the other NGOs. In CFT there was a turnover of 41 per cent from the previous
year. In YMC hostels, of the seven from last year, only two teachers remained whereas in
the 12 site schools seven teachers remained. As discussed earlier, due to the pattern of
recruitment, turnover rates in Janarth are high. In 30 hostels managed by Lokadrusti in
2008-09, only 10 teachers were continuing from the start. Overall, given the investment
required in training, the strategy to retain teachers needs to be assessed in light of the
substantial rate of teacher turnover in the field areas. (AIF has subsequently taken various
steps to stem turnover problems which is between 10-20 per cent across NGOs now.)
It is not that the pilot initiative is not producing results. The results are perhaps even
underpaid. Although the present initiative is supported by supervisors, the day-to-
day operational burden lies with them. Different partners have followed different
approaches in upgrading quality. While in YMC, support is being provided by the
general supervisory layer, CFT, Lokadrusti and Setu have designated some supervisors
as ‘quality‘ supervisors and built a small team to assist with this task. Janarth has
followed the same approach but has assigned three supervisors to assist with the
new methodology. AIF proposes to take steps to strengthen the capacity of teachers
in the next phase by providing different types of training. One of these will be to
assess and strengthen the subject or content knowledge of the teachers, especially
in mathematics and science, which may be low to begin with, or may need to be
refreshed. One round of such training has been imparted to teachers in CFT and
Lokadrusti with encouraging results. But these training initiatives will be subject
to the constraints mentioned above.
Third, the present initiative is being piloted in only a sample of schools, which
were considered the most appropriate, as for example having better quality
instructors and hostels close to the headquarters, so that monitoring could be
manageable. Upscaling will be done in phases, every year. Setu and others plan to
take 5 more new hostels as quality centres and concentrate on training. In Orissa,
with recent takeover of hostel management by VECs, Lokadrusti consortium
instructors can concentrate exclusively on instruction, and hence the consortium
is trying to upscale the quality program to all their hostels. However, given the
constraints in terms of the qualifications of the instructors, the varied experience
and capability of the teachers, it is still difficult to envisage how the approach can
take firm roots across all the hostels.
Fourth, on the student side, the strategy does not presently fully factor in the
discontinuous nature of the hostel residency in such a program. Although, our
conclusions, based on figures reported by the NGOs show that in some areas a
significant proportion of migrant children do not necessarily continue as hostel
inmates on a year-to-year basis. For example, Janarth did a follow up survey in
2008-09 in 38 sending villages. It found that out of 902 children who had attended
shakharshalas during 2005-08, 68 per cent had continued in schools while the rest
had dropped out. The percentage of those continuing in schools was similar among
boys and girls. Among the various reasons reported were continuous absenteeism,
overage, pressure for work in fields and domestic work. In order to analyze hostel
retention, Janarth analyzed data from 6 villages where it had worked in SHs for a
continuous period of 3 years. The total number of students (cumulative) who had
taken advantage of hostels was 597, of whom 10 per cent (59) had taken advantage
for all three years, whereas 18.3 per cent had taken advantage for two continuous
years. In Gujarat, where the migration is short distance, the figures reported to us
by Setu and CFT are better, but show that 66 and 82 per cent respectively of the
children enrolled last year were also in the hostels in the current year (including
The present
AIF initiative to
improve the quality
of education
will be viable
and sustainable
if a way can
be found to
mainstream quality
upgradation in the
formal schools.
Otherwise the
formal schools will
be abdicating their
role and the entire
pressure will be
on the hostels for
quality teaching.
The teaching
support given in
the hostels cannot
be a substitute for
the regular and
formal teaching of
the primary village
schools.
l
l
Arif Baig,
a teacher at
Lokadrusti’s
seasonal hostel
in Orissa, who
has undergone
the quality
training program
as part of AIF’s
pilot initiative
to improve
the quality of
learning under
LAMP.
t

beyond expectations. But the main issues relate to sustainability and scalability. In our view, the present AIF
initiative will be viable and sustainable if a way can be found to mainstream quality upgradation in the formal
schools. Otherwise the formal schools will be abdicating their role and the entire pressure will be on the hostels
for quality teaching. Moreover, the teaching support given in the hostels cannot be a substitute for the regular
and formal teaching of the primary village schools. The issue of quality learning needs to be discussed in
the specific context of the program, involving issues of teacher qualification, recruitment, turnover, student
turnover, instruction time, etc. AIF may like to have more consultation for its next phase, which will largely
focus on the quality of learning.
Integration of the Program with State and Local Governments
The national flagship program for elementary education in India, SSA, has recognized the need to have focused
initiatives to educate migrant children. It has asked States to identify and include children whose education
is affected due to migration and has suggested parameters under some of its existing program such as the
Education Guarantee Scheme (EGS) and the Scheme for Alternative Innovative Education (AIE) by which States
could assist in setting up seasonal hostels or site schools. The guidelines for the AIE (which is more relevant for
migrant situations) provides for support to site schools, seasonal hostels, bridge courses for dropped out children,
and mobile teachers to accompany migrant families. The guidelines also provide for supporting AIE initiatives
through voluntary agencies apart from being directly implemented by State agencies or local governments.
There are ceilings in expenditure to be incurred for non-residential and residential children (Rs 3,000 and
Rs 10,000 per child respectively) and on the teachers/hostel coordinators. The approvals are expected to be done
through EGS and AIE societies created at the district and State levels. The schemes also provide for elements
such as supervision and teacher training.
Despite this general framework, the uptake in States has been low, leaving a large gap between interventions
on the ground (whether government financed or not). However, the governments of Gujarat, Maharashtra and
Orissa have supported seasonal hostels, site schools and other initiatives in the 2008-09 school year, and AIF
estimates (Annual Report, 2007-08) that they are investing $12.5 million to educate 145,000 children affected
by migration. Some other State governments, notably Andhra Pradesh, have also taken similar initiatives.
The Maharashtra government has set out parameters of support for SHs either by VECs or by NGOs. The latter
require the consent of the VECs if they set up these hostels with governmental financial support. The entire
procedure of approvals is cumbersome, tedious and time consuming and has to be followed afresh each year. In
Gujarat, the government supports a limited number of SHs through the NGOs and allocates the numbers to the
NGOs. In both cases, the sanction for the hostels is for a limited number of months, shorter than the migration
cycle and the financial release is almost always considerably delayed.
In the case of site schools, these can be sanctioned by the government under one of the available parameters
in the SSA, that of Education Guarantee Schools i.e. schools which can be set up in locations where none are
available within a distance of a kilometre, or by recognizing these children as ‘hard to reach’ children under
AIE. In Orissa, the SSA has again supported the setting up of SHs (called RCCs) in several of its migration prone
districts (Bolangir, Bargarh, Kalahandi and Nuapada). As in Maharashtra, these hostels could be set up under the
auspices of the VEC or by an NGO (again with the formal consent of the local community
and the VEC). In actual practice, most of the successful SHs have been run by NGOs.
However, in 2008-09, the Government of Orissa announced that SHs in the state would
only be run by the VECs. This has caused a lot of flux in the situation on the ground in
Orissa. (See page 59.)
The procedure for approvals, sanctions and financial releases is again an annual one,
with all the features and delays described earlier. Further, as pointed out earlier, in the
case of the site schools, an elaborate procedure has to be followed to first treat the child’s
location in the SSs as a ‘transfer’ from the parent school; then to maintain and transfer her
attendance record to the local (destination area) formal school where she can write her
examinations if necessary, and finally to transfer the record of attendance/ performance
back to the parent school, and each step requires facilitation by the school and education
department authorities, as well as approval of the local VEC.
Even the present level of government support to these initiatives has been achieved
through persistent advocacy by the partners, supported in no small measure by good
officials sometimes at the helm of affairs in the state or district, and supplemented (as
in the case of Lokadrusti, Janarth and Setu) by use of Right to Information Act (RTI) and
questions in the Legislative Assembly or council.
The governments
of Gujarat,
Maharashtra
and Orissa have
supported seasonal
hostels, and site
schools in the 2008-
09 school year, and
AIF estimates that
they are investing
$12.5 million to
educate 145,000
children affected
by migration.
Children eat
their mid-day meal
at the government
primary school at
Morula village,
Beed district,
Maharashtra.
Janarth runs
a hostel here
for children of
sugarcane workers.
The younger
children attend the
school, identified
here by their
badges.
t

The MoUs with AIF now build in government financial support for the
programs, providing essentially matching support. This objective is to incentivize
the partners to seek government support which clearly (for honest NGOs) is not
easily forthcoming. Presently, partners have used AIF funds as bridge as well as
supplementary support.
In the case of Gujarat partners, Setu uses AIF support to fund certain schools
and hostels in periods when government support is delayed and not available. On
the other hand, CFT designates schools and hostels as either government-funded
or AIF-funded. In principle, in Maharashtra, government support can be available
for all the schools and hostels but not always for the entire migration period, but
there are delays and difficulties in achieving this, and external support from AIF (and
Banyan Tree Foundation for site schools) allows Janarth to sustain the program at its
present level. In the case of Lokadrusti and its consortium partners, all their schools
received SSA grants. The proportion of AIF’s share in total grant has declined in
Orissa (currently about 30 per cent) but is vital to run the supervisory and training
systems and to allow the NGOs some fall back options to cope with delays and cut
backs in governmental funding. Some of the partners also receive supplementary
support from other organizations as well—in addition to Janarth’s support from
BTF mentioned above, YMC got support for its site schools (till recently) from CARE,
while Setu gets a small grant from Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
Site schools have to necessarily adhere to a governmental regulatory system since
the education they provide is expected to supplement formal school education,
irrespective of whether they receive any governmental funding or not. The hostels,
on the other hand, need not be government regulated unless they receive its
support.
The view that AIF should not put government financial support as a conditionality
has been suggested most strongly by the Janarth Executive Director. The alternative
strategy proposed would be that AIF only supports the development of prototype
site schools/hostels through full financing and leaves the government to replicate
these models through other channels. On the other hand, AIF could also decide to
finance specific components or activities, reducing the overlap with government
funding, but this may reduce the cushion available to the partners and jeopardize
existing interventions.
Careful lessons need to be drawn based on the partner’s experience in working
with government, and AIF should focus on the comparative experience of the three
states (and others if information is available) in advocating models of government
support which could work well in the different contexts. In doing this, the recent
Orissa experience may be instructive.
Recent Experience of LAMP in Orissa
The LAMP in Orissa has possibly witnessed greater changes than in other states.
The Government of Orissa’s SSA program has been supporting the seasonal hostels
through its AIE scheme even before AIF came on the scene. This is because more
than any other state, the tribal areas of Western Orissa have been known for their
out-migration. But the functioning of the RCCs has been less than satisfactory.
(AIF wanted to model how a good RCC can be run.) The management of the
RCCs has been mostly with NGOs but some RCCs have also been managed by
the Village Education Committees. In Nuapada district, of the 199 RCCs, 50 were
being managed by the VECs. As in all other cases, the NGOs make a proposal to
government (District Project Coordinator of the SSA) through the VEC and the
headmaster and on approval, the proposal is forwarded by the District Magistrate
and receives government sanction. In 2008-09, the Government of Orissa took a
late decision (in January 2009) after the migration period was half over, to run all
the RCCs directly through the VECs. Lokadrusti and its consortium partners had
already opened RCCs in 52 hostels on the basis of approvals given by the district
administration. The government decided to reimburse the NGO costs for the
period till February.
The view that
AIF should not
put government
financial support
as a conditionality
has been suggested
most strongly.
The alternative
strategy proposed
would be that
AIF only supports
the development
of prototype
site schools/
hostels through
full financing
and leaves the
government to
replicate these
models through
other channels.
Orissa provides an
opportunity to study
a model which has
emerged by default.
The comparison of
two models—one in
which the VEC and
NGO are cooperating
and one in which the
hostels are being run
exclusively by the
VECs—is also possible.

Since February when this change occurred, Lokadrusti (and AIF) have continued to
support the RCCs through the instructors who run bridge courses for dropped out students
during June to September, and subsequently take supplementary classes of the residents
for about four hours every day (as per the new methodology of AIF). They continue to
support the surveys and community mobilization as before. The actual management is
now provided by the VECs, which have an elected chairperson with the village school
headmaster as member secretary. A new hostel coordinator has been appointed at the
honorarium fixed by the SSA (Rs 1000 per month). Thus effectively, while the VEC is
supervising and managing the RCCs, Lokadrusti and its partners are providing support
for social mobilization, database creation, and learning processes and strengthening the
systems it had set up. Orissa provides an opportunity to study a model which has emerged
by default. Moreover, comparison of two models—one in which the VEC and NGO are
cooperating and one in which the RCCs are being run exclusively by the VECs—is also
possible. Our field observations indicate the following:
In most cases, the headmaster effectively administers the RCC on behalf of the VEC.
There were only a few cases where the VEC chairperson and a few other members
were actively involved in the RCC.
A number of children of local residents had been inducted into the RCCs, inflating the
list of ‘residents’. Only a few of these children came to the RCC for meals. Students
and community members indicated that the quality of meals had gone down, and the
earlier dietary variety was no longer available.
The only activities in the RCC were those implemented by the NGO instructors, who
were still involving the students in learning and extra-curricular activities.
In a few cases, the RCCs had been closed down by the VEC secretary, even though very few migrant parents
had returned.
Over half a dozen RCCs run by the VECs without NGO support were visited. Except in one or two cases, where
dinner was still being provided by the RCC all others had been closed down, although they were still operating
on paper. Most of the enrolled children in the RCCs were children of non-migrants.
Although 2008-09 was an exceptional year since the RCCs were handed over to the VECs in February 2009, there
are common trends in their mode of management, both in the case of VECs in which Lokadrusti and its partners
are still involved and those in which only VECs are involved. These can be summarized as follows:
VECs have been enrolling (on paper) both migrant and non-migrant children.
Hostel activities are reduced to a minimum, principally being confined to providing meals to a subset of the
enrolled children.
RCCs have been closed down before the return of migrants while they continue to run on paper.
Meetings with the Collector and the District Project Coordinator were quite instructive. Both suggested
that the shift in policy had taken place because some of the NGOs were inflating figures and not managing the
RCCs well. But they also conceded that all was not well currently and that there could again be a policy change,
allowing NGOs to manage the RCCs. This could be because the print and electronic media had been highlighting
the negative impact of the change. Interestingly, the government had released full payments of NGOs on whose
performance the media had put question marks in the earlier period while withholding payments to Lokadrusti
and its partners. (Subsequently in 2009-10 Lokadrusti is again running hostels independently.)
There are question marks on whether the VECs could manage the RCCs efficiently, a considered view is that in
the Orissa context, the VECs on their own cannot undertake the task of advocacy and weaning away the migrant
children from labor migration. Can the RCCs work with VEC-NGO cooperation? The recent change, in some sense
reduces some of the responsibility and risk which NGOs have been bearing in taking responsibility of the hostel
children for several months. Shorn of this risk, there seems to be some scope for VEC-NGO cooperation and the
ground rules for such cooperation need to be jointly formulated. This is a developing situation and the negatives
in the Orissa situation can possibly be seized upon to evolve the contours of a new type of program.
Going Beyond Elementary Education?
The partners in Gujarat are currently focusing on the elementary school cycle (Grade 1 to 7). However, there is
some involvement with taking the children beyond the elementary school level and nurturing them through
high school. As an experiment CFT has tried to get some 48 children successfully admitted to high school. YMC is
supporting older children by providing hostel accommodation to them in Bhadreshwar and Khavada. It has also
provided some support to elementary school children in its hostels and site schools to enrol in high schools by
providing them with cycles. CFT is also supporting a limited number of migrants’ children in high schools in similar
fashion. It is also considering interventions to support skill training among the older children. The facilitation of
first generation learners from deprived migrant communities can serve as a role model for these communities.
t
Children at the
Khirmal Residential
Care Centre (RCC)
eating rice left
over from the
night before. Ever
since the Village
Educational
Committees (VECs)
took over the
running of the
hostels, students
and community
members indicated
the quality of the
meals has gone
down.
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While the VEC
is supervising
and managing
the RCCs,
Lokadrusti and
its partners
are providing
support
for social
mobilization,
database
creation,
and learning
processes and
strengthening
the systems
they have set
up.

However, it has to be recognized that this type of support is still limited and falls far
short of developing into a systematic strategy or a full-fledged program. Indeed, given
the very different structure of secondary school education (mainly private and oriented
towards general education), it is also not clear as yet what shape a possible program in
this direction could take.
The Role of Advocacy
The foremost contribution of AIF and its partners has been to highlight and make visible
the issue of education of children in the context of seasonal family migration and to
demonstrate the feasibility and viability of basically sound approaches which have been
a part and parcel of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, but on paper.
With Government Agencies: One major aspect of advocacy has
been with government officials in the Centre and States who are
responsible for programs which have a bearing on child education.
The AIF office has itself spearheaded this advocacy campaign with
the support of the SSA program officials and the officials of the
Ministry, who have from time to time, issued clarificatory orders to
the States, and revised the per capita budgetary norms in line with
actual requirements. Similar efforts have been taken up with State
officials which has lent a profile and visibility to the issue within
States and has facilitated the work of partners and others working
with migrating children.
Through Publications: The AIF has also distilled its experience of
seasonal migration and its impact through the work of its partners
in the various geographies that it has worked and has disseminated
this widely in the form of a well-written book on seasonal migration
(Locked Homes, Empty Schools: The Impact of Distress Seasonal
Migration on the Rural Poor by Smita, Zubaan, 2007) released in Delhi
in 2007 by Prof. Amartya Sen, who in his remarks candidly admitted
that the book brought home to him the depth of the problem.
AIF has published an operational manual (Education in Motion: A Handbook for
Implementing Education Programs for Children of Seasonal Migrants, AIF, 2009), which is
an invaluable guide to the practitioners, both governmental and non-governmental. The
manual approaches the issue at all levels and from all angles, beginning with a typology
of migration and its impact on child education and then carrying the discussion to issues
of State, district and block-level planning and implementation, NGO implementation,
features and processes in the different types of intervention and field processes. It is a
pity that this manual has not been co-sponsored by government making its circulation in
governmental processes limited.
Through Other NGOs: A third dimension of AIF advocacy has been interaction and
collaboration with other agencies. For instance, it has interacted with UN agencies and
other multi laterals for awareness raising, with academic institutions to encourage research
on the subject and with the National Foundation of India for media awareness.
Advocacy by Partner NGOs: Apart from AIF’s advocacy initiatives, the role of its partners
has been no less impressive. In Gujarat, Setu and CFT have carried out an impressive
portfolio of studies on seasonal migration and its impact and which have been followed
more recently by YMC. These studies are listed in the bibliography of this report. Setu
has used various fora including the judicial process to focus on the rights of migrants and
the children. In Maharashtra, Janarth has not only carried out impressive studies on the
condition of sugarcane migrants in the destination and (more recently) in the sending
areas, it has used many other channels, including media, Legislative Assembly questions
and questions under the RTI to galvanize public action on this issue. In Orissa, Lokadrusti
and its partners have not only highlighted migration related issues through the media,
they have also taken up cudgels against human rights abuses in migration.
While a precise assessment of the impact of the approach to advocacy by AIF and its
partners may be difficult and perhaps also premature, there is no doubt that this advocacy
has made a significant contribution in maintaining a certain degree of momentum and
visibility on the issue of education of the migrating children in the program states, and
to some extent even at the national level.
Book cover of
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The foremost
contribution
of AIF and its
partners has been
to highlight and
make visible the
issue of education
of children in
the context of
seasonal family
migration and
to demonstrate
the feasibility
and viability of
basically sound
approaches which
have been a part
and parcel of the
Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan, but on
paper.

Overall Assessment
Gap in coverage: There is a huge implementation gap at present relating to the
education of children of migrating families. Even in areas where AIF partners are
working, the unmet need for the education of migrant children is vast. For example,
despite Janarth’s vast and impressive intervention, only about 7 per cent of the
migrant children were covered in the site schools in the sugarcane areas. There is no
reliable estimate of the coverage in other migrant destinations such as brick kilns
and mining sites. Rough estimates were made of the coverage in Gujarat. Although,
in some cases (roof tile factories and salt-pans) the coverage was impressive, there
was a vast gap in the coverage of children in other site schools. Similarly, the AIF
partner initiatives in setting up seasonal hostels for children of migrating families,
cover only a small percentage of migration prone villages in the selected districts
in all the three states, and not all the affected children in the selected villages are
able to benefit from the interventions. This is not unexpected given the scale and
nature of the problem and reflects the enormous need for upscaled interventions.
AIF supported interventions can at best aim to highlight the issue and work out
possible solutions while helping the lives of the number of children they cover. An
assessment of coverage by other NGOs and agencies is not available, but this too,
is likely to be small.
The government’s SSA program does take the needs of migrant children on board
and addresses these both through support to voluntary agencies as well as more
directly. In Orissa’s Nuapada district the VECs have been managing several seasonal
hostels. In Aurangabad district in Maharashtra, the District Collector has started
50 hostels for migrant children. But, effective coverage under direct government
delivery systems is still small and not likely to improve dramatically under existing
governmental initiatives. This is primarily because the visibility of migrants is low
both at the macro level and within local communities (they belong to the most
marginalized communities) and drawing the migrants’ children into education
requires heavy social mobilization and multifaceted initiatives. But there are other
reasons, both organizational and financial, which make upscaling of initiatives
purely at the governmental level difficult at this stage. Moreover, as observations
in Orissa indicate, the quality of the government-run hostels can be a matter of
serious concern, severely limiting the impact of such interventions.
7 Conclusion
Even in areas
where AIF partners
are working, the
unmet need for
the education of
migrant children
is vast. Similarly,
the AIF partner
initiatives in setting
up seasonal hostels
for children of
migrating families,
cover only a small
percentage of
migration prone
villages in the
selected districts
in all the three
states. This is not
unexpected given
the scale and nature
of the problem and
reflects the vast
need for upscaled
interventions.

General Findings on LAMP
The general findings of this review are very positive. Briefly:
A well founded initiative: The scale and the magnitude of seasonal migration, and its impact upon the livelihood
of workers and upon India achieving the MDGs are highly underrated in the existing policy and academic discourse
in India. Hence, the intervention of AIF and its partners, in seeking to bring education to the children of seasonally
migrant workers is an extremely well founded initiative.
Positive impact on children and community: The program is limited to some areas in three states and is currently
the most extensive in Maharashtra. It focuses on some of the poorest areas and the most vulnerable groups of
migrants. The quality of seasonal hostels and site schools run under the program is, given the context, quite
impressive. The children that we met had advanced in learning, were engaged with the schools/hostels and looked
forward to their continuance. So also their parents and guardians.
Advanced partners’ experience: The AIF and partners have, within a limited number of years, deepened their
understanding and have advanced in their experience of the process. The partners, who did not have prior experience
of working in elementary education, have ‘learnt on the job’. The monitoring and implementation mechanisms
that have been set up are quite rigorous in most cases. The partners have now acquired a wealth of experience in
advocacy and in interaction with the community and different levels of government.
Created opportunity for intervention: Persistent advocacy by AIF at the national and State level and the
partners, at the State and local levels, has created the space within which the children of seasonal migrants can
access education. However, since a great deal of social mobilization is necessary to make the programs effective
one needs to know more about how they are working under alternative delivery mechanisms.
Program Strategy Related Recommendations
Redefine strategy within the framework of UEE: The review suggests that despite valuable progress there is
a long way to go in AIF supported interventions in order to ensure that the children of migrant workers (in the
modal streams) are educated in the source villages or the destination areas. And that eventually all children living
in these villages access education. Although this is not an objective for AIF or its partners at present, there has to
be a careful consideration of AIF’s key objectives at this stage in a wider social and cultural context, in order to
analyze present constraints and formulate possible future strategies. In other words, AIF’s broader goal has to be
defined within the framework of UEE.
Expand the intervention to other areas/states. For a small program in three states, AIF and its partners have
been able to exercise important influence on national and State level programs. But the size of the intervention
is not large enough to impress on the national and State governments the need and urgency of factoring in
migration in education. AIF’s own resources may not permit further geographical expansion of LAMP. Hence, there
is a case for considering enlargement of similar interventions to more geographies in a few more states, using if
possible a consortium approach.
Broadbase surveys and documentation: Despite some excellent surveys/studies carried out by AIF and its partners
on the pattern of seasonal migration in the areas of work, a number of questions remain, primarily because all
these surveys have focused on modal migration streams and have thus tended to be segmented. In other words,
despite excellent surveys and documentation, a full picture of either the patterns of migration or school education
is still lacking. In Orissa, however, in villages and work sites where migration registers are well maintained, their
analysis can yield a wealth of information. Overall, there is a need to define the context more comprehensively.
For this it may be necessary to conduct surveys which are broad enough to cover the necessary ground.
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More focused advocacy with Central/State governments: Stronger evidence based advocacy for a bigger
component of migration focused approach in SSA strategies is vital. This requires more learning from the experience
of AIF and its partners, and better evidence on migration and its impact.
Pursue an integrated approach for upliftment of migrant’s welfare at work sites and source areas: Issues at the
work sites and in the source areas are invariably linked. For example, improvement in working conditions, provision
of crèches and small changes in labor processes at the work sites would dramatically reduce the opportunity cost
of child labor and child work and make it far more feasible for the migrants to educate their children, conditions
permitting. A strategy for improving the access of migrant children to education cannot be pursued entirely
in isolation of the migrants’ search for better and more dignified lives. At the work sites, Janarth’s strategy of
integrating early childhood care with education and health camps for children are significant beginnings. The
lines pursued by CFT, Lokadrusti and Parda, and YMC are also promising. The two Gujarat organizations cooperate
with the Agariya Hirkarni Manch and the Setu Information Centre to improve health, safety and social protection
available to salt-pan workers. In the source areas, the Orissa organizations have taken to a rights based approach
as well as to raising awareness among migrant workers and advocacy among the labor contractors to break the
patri system. They have also focused on improving the local livelihood base and access to employment through
the NREGA to reduce distress migration. The impact of these steps on distress migration has unfortunately so far
been very marginal. The central issue is to consider those strategies which can be integrated to provide better
livelihoods as well as educational opportunities for the children, both male and female, in the source areas as
well as the destination areas.
Strategic innovation for seasonal hostels and site schools: AIF as a strategy has favored intervention in source
areas while supporting education of children at work sites, recognizing that for various reasons it may not be
possible to reach out to children in the source areas. This report shows that AIF is correct in its approach in prioritizing
support to source areas. At the same time it is difficult to follow an either/or approach at this stage, given the
current level of total family migration and the limited coverage of overall intervention. However, it may be possible
to innovate in terms of strategies, for example integrating site schools and local schools wherever possible.
Prioritize gender and social inclusion: Gender issues and cultural barriers continue to keep girls out of school,
particularly so in Gujarat where the age of marriage is still low, and the girl’s role in household subsistence strategies
very high. There is a sharp drop out from schooling among adolescent and pre-adolescent girls. There are also
serious ramifications for girls in migration as they are very vulnerable to abuse. Dealing with girls in this age
group in the residential context also presents special problems. There is a case for AIF and partners to document
gender issues in the program at this stage and to reflect on why some girls are still not in the education net in the
intervention areas. An approach to deal with girls not currently fully integrated in LAMP may require a separate
special focus (for example for adolescent girls) or may call for strengthening other strategy elements.
Taking some part of the program beyond elementary school education: It has been shown that AIF partners
have facilitated the entry of students from migrant families into high schools which may become a role model
for some children from these communities. And now as the Government of India gears up for universalization of
secondary education through its Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA), extending the program beyond
elementary school stage will be an important strategy pursued by AIF and its partners.
Integration of AIF’s pilot on quality learning in seasonal hostels with local schools: The focus of AIF and its
partners on imparting quality education to migrant children under very difficult circumstances is quite exemplary.
These efforts have had a positive impact felt by the students and the community. AIF is now piloting a new
methodology which it hopes to expand in the next phase. This report, however, sounds a cautionary note both
in terms of the situational constraints in imparting quality to seasonal hostel residents and the need to integrate
this initiative with the wider schooling initiative.
Program Implementation Related Recommendations
Decentralization: Partners ought to encourage more decentralized management of information, thus
building greater capacity among the supervisory staff.
Consolidation of interventions: Though monitoring and supervisory systems are working reasonably well
overall, they are weak in certain cases. YMC’s planning and monitoring systems need considerable consolidation
and strengthening. While a certain breadth of approach may be welcome, YMC has dissipated its work in too
many directions.
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Working with government: This report examines the social and governmental context in which the program is
operating. The situation is different in different states, but a common element is the difficulty faced by the partners
in working with the different levels of government and with the educational administration. While the manual
prepared by AIF gives details of an operational strategy, it does not bring out the existing constraints. It is suggested
that AIF and its partners prepare a paper on the relevant issues through a consultative workshop and use it as a basis
for advocacy. This workshop could also elicit the participation of other organizations working on this issue.
Delineation of responsibilities: The report has suggested that teacher recruitment, salaries and training need to
be examined carefully by all the partners. A careful delineation of the responsibilities of the hostel coordinators also
needs to be made, taking into account their existing workload and nature of responsibilities. Inception training of
all teachers is a necessity in all cases.
Instruction quality in formal schools: While AIF and its partners’ focus on quality
of education is undoubtedly very welcome, it is unlikely to be sustainable unless
the initiative is rooted in the formal schools where the children spend most of their
instructional time. This would necessarily mean the involvement of AIF and its
partners on quality issues, going beyond children of migrants and focusing on the
formal school system. The hostel coordinators need also to go beyond the school
syllabi and encourage the children to learn in multiple ways including more from
their local environment.
Strengthening relations between hostel and community: The NGOs encourage
the participation of the community in the management of the hostel in some
important ways: providing hostel space and related infrastructure and providing
some supervision. These links can be further strengthened: some contribution by the
migrant families for the upkeep of their children; non-migrant relatives providing
support to the hostels and the wards; a rotation of duties among cooks/helpers etc.
This is already being practised in some of the areas but the experiences could be
taken forward more systematically.
Strengthening relations between hostel and school: The relationship between the
hostels and the formal schools and that between hostel wardens and formal school
teachers is a variable one. An examination of the existing experience is required in
order to strengthen this relationship.
A Concluding Note
There are few other investments that can bring higher social returns than investing in the future of children from the
most vulnerable families. Although the Government of India has taken steps to reduce vulnerability through programs
such as the NREGA, in the areas visited for this review, the program has still not made a significant dent on the
situation on the ground, and migration rates continue to be very high. Further, although the government has shown
a high commitment towards educating all children—now with the Right to Education having been passed as an Act
of Parliament, and increased funds committed—its programs need strong supplementary inputs in various forms. AIF,
in our view, should continue to support LAMP through focused interventions which can translate the governmental
and social intent into reality.
Although the
Government of
India has shown a
high commitment
towards educating
all children,
its programs
need strong
supplementary
inputs in various
forms. AIF should
continue to support
LAMP through
focused interventions
which can translate
the governmental
and social intent into
reality.
l
l
l
l
l

72 LAMP REVIEW
Apart from quarterly and annual progress reports, strategy papers, Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs), Central and
State government documents, and other reports of AIF and the NGO partners, the following papers, reports, and survey
reports prepared by, or for the NGOs have been consulted:
CARE India (2006): A Brief Report on Sensitization Workshop on‘Socio-economic and Ecological Issues of Fishing Community
at Kachchh and Saurashtra Coast’. Workshop organized by CARE India with support from Animal Husbandry, Fisheries and
Cow Breeding Department, Government of Gujarat.
Janarth, Aurangabad (2005): Sending Villages Report.
Janarth, Aurangabad (2006): Working together towards sustaining migrant children’s education: the case of Janarth
Vasatigruha.
Janarth, Aurangabad (2007): Reflections: Sakhar Shala Proposal submitted to American India Foundation Banyan Tree
Foundation for the period July 2007 to June 2010.
Nanda, Sudip Kumar (n.d.): Tribal Migration: A Case Study of Dahod District. Ahmedabad.
National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector, New Delhi, Government of India (2007): Conditions of Work
and Promotion of Livelihoods in the Unorganised Sector. New Delhi: Academic Foundation.
Saline Area Enterprises Ltd. (n.d.). A Pinch of Salt: A Study of Salt Workers of Rajkot, Surendranangar, Kutch and Patan
Districts of Gujarat. Conducted for CARE.
Setu: Centre for Social Knowledge and Action, Ahmedabad (n.d.): An Overview of Migration in Gujarat.
Setu: Centre for Social Knowledge, Action, Ahmedabad, and Gujarat Jan Jagran Sangh (1999): Living conditions of salt
workers in Kutch.
Smita (2007): Locked Homes, Empty Schools: The Impact of Distress Seasonal Migration on the Rural Poor. New Delhi:
Zubaan.
Srivastava, Ravi (2009): ‘Conceptualising Continuity and Change in Emerging Forms of Labor Bondage in India’, in Jan
Breman, Isabelle Guerin Aseem Prakash (eds.). India’s Unfree Workforce: Of Bondage Old and New. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press. pp. 129-146.
Srivastava, Ravi (2005a). ‘India: Internal Migration and its links with Poverty and Development’, in Migration, Development
and Poverty Reduction in Asia. Geneva: International Organization for Migration.
Srivastava, Ravi and Sasikumar (2005b). ‘An Overview of migration in India, its impacts and key issues’, in Tasneem Siddiqui
(ed.) Migration and Development: Pro-poor Policy Choices. Dhaka: The University Press, pp. 157-216 [earlier version published
as: (2003) Paper No. 2, Migration and Development and Pro-poor Policy Choices in Asia, London: DFID].
Srivastava, Ravi (1998): ‘Migration and the Labor Market in India’, invited keynote paper, conference issue. The Indian Journal
of Labour Economics, Vol. 41, No. 4, Oct-Dec, pp. 583-617.
Thivakaran (forthcoming): Kachchh Coastal Environment and Developmental Activities: An Overview.
United Nations Development Programme (2009): Human Development Report 2009. Overcoming Barriers: Human Mobility
and Development. New York: UNDP.
Yusuf Meherally Centre, Kutchh (n.d.): Fishing Community in Mundra.
Bibliography

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