A SERIOUS lack of education for street children in Bangladesh, as child rights campaigners have pointed out on the occasion of International Day for Street Children, is worrying. The Bureau of Non-Formal Education and the Shishu Kalyan Trust programmes cover only 39,415 children against the total of 3.4 million street children. The Shishu Kalyan Trust also provides stipends for 220 street children and imparts skills training on 520 more children in its technical education centres. The bureau is implementing a pilot project in Cox鈥檚 Bazar for 6,825 adolescents focused on skills-centred literacy and submitted a proposal to the government to replicate the project in other districts. The education ministry has no programme for such children. Child rights campaigners primarily blame the policy oversight that its primary education and literacy programmes are focused on schools. Street children growing up without parents in urban settings have rarely received government attention. It is promising that committee formed recently to suggest changes in the quality of primary and non-formal education highlights the educational support that the street children need from the government.
Education programmes for street children, as many educationists and right activists say, see their educational need in isolation. Many non-governmental organisations observe that without addressing the socio-economic vulnerability of street children, it is not possible to keep them in school. About 85 per cent of street children suffer from various health issues such as accident injury, skin infection, hepatitis, sexually transmitted diseases and worm infestation. In 2022, the Department of Narcotics Control reported that 56 per cent of the street children are addicted to drug substances while 21 per cent of them are used as carriers of drug substances. The vulnerability of street children and their basic rights remain unfulfilled for lack of the implementation of policies, including the National Children Policy 2011, which speaks of the nutrition, health, overall protection, education and social security of children in poverty. Government effort to rehabilitate homeless children is, rather, piecemeal and it, therefore, does not always bring the expected result. What is needed is a comprehensive programme that will provide them with shelter and education and will also ensure their emotional and intellectual well-being.
The government should, therefore, expand the scope of its primary education to include street children. It should also consider the socio-economic vulnerability of such children and develop a holistic programme to provide them with food, shelter, clothing, health and educational support. In addition, the government should strengthen its oversight mechanism to ensure that the projects reach the intended beneficiaries.
