When we think about the term ‘education’, we associate different terms, places, people and meanings with it. In this subcontinent, for some, education is a phase of life. And for many others education is a ‘means’, with which they can buy the necessities of the life. Today, I mean today – school has become a synonym for the term ‘education.’ The so called successful education institutions of the present day follow many ‘amazing’ business ‘tactics’ in order to attract their costumers – these costumers are none other than the parents of those innocent kids….. They aren’t just kids – sometimes they are the young gentlemen and women who are about to reach their twenties. Predominantly in our country, where the middle class and lower middle class constitute the majority population, the people give a lot of importance to ‘security’ of their lives. When a student belonging to this strata of the society is questioned about what security meant to him, he says ‘….well, before my age crosses 28, I will need to learn to stand on my own legs – and also earn handsome of salary and name in the society. I should be in a condition to look after my parents, who are responsible for my being and……’

As we move into the rural India, the people have far different ways of understanding the terms – ‘life’, ‘education’, ‘security’ and so on…. For them all the mentioned terms are linked to very few things, for example – to a farmer’s son (who will be a farmer most probably), security just means ‘rain.’ All the kids here imitate their parents, and are expected to be the ‘exact’ replica of their parents.

In the villages, good numbers of children aren’t regular to the schools, they spend their time in helping their parents, if time permits – they go to school. These are the school going child laborers who earn a petty good amount of money. We live in a world, where ‘child labor’ is considered as a social evil, and governments try providing aid to the child labors and eventually drag them into the school – which is a part of our “old” educational system.

“… I wakeup at five thirty, in the morning – reach my tuitions by six, then come back to home by eight, take a quick bath and eat my breakfast. I reach school by nine thirty (…our principal will not accept any late comers – we will be asked to run around our play ground). Our classes will continue till four thirty, we will have a break for lunch and an interval, where we make time for ourselves to play cricket or football. On an average we play for one hour a day (we play two hours, if it is Friday – we have a games period). I reach home by five, eat some snacks, watch TV for fifteen minutes, and run for my tuitions. In the tuitions, we are supposed to by heart all the day’s lessons and the tuition teacher will not send us back, if we fail to answer the questions. I come back home by eight thirty, and have my dinner at eight forty five with my mom, dad and brother. Then I watch TV for a while, and revise my days syllabus till ten thirty and then go to bed…..’ says Ramu, a twelve year old boy, who studies seventh class in one of the local schools of Andhra Pradesh.

“……I wakeup at five in the morning – milk the cows, go to the field on the cycle and switch on the motor. I take bath in the field itself and cycle back to home. I eat my breakfast at eight or eight thirty; I go back to the field, work for a while and play till I feel hungry. Generally I reach home by two or two thirty and eat the lunch. I take a nap till evening, go back to field, work and play there till the day turns dark, and walk back home. I take my dinner at eight and start chatting with the people in the home; I lie down in the TV room and watch those Hindi programs, which come in DD (No dish connection in our home&#33 till I sleep. Well, I am learning how to ride a motorcycle, these days…” adds Shiva, a bonded child laborer.
Shiva is working in a house of a farmer in the AP., he enjoys his day and childhood. Well, Shiva does have some socio-economic problems in his master’s house, like any other bonded labor. Though the lives of several other Shiva’s of our country are in a terrible condition, it’s our responsibility to provide them a better alternative, through which they can really ‘discover’ themselves. There are several instances in the villages, where the child laborer doesn’t want to be a part of our system. The government officials deeply study the peripheral reasons of drop outs. ‘…they try to bring in several changes in different aspects of education; they introduce several reforms in government schools, build new classrooms, bathrooms and so on. They even change the syllabus and try making it more ‘creative’, ‘analytical’, ‘logical.’’ Most of the instances re-proved that the drop-out rates have never decreased. Officials and NGO’s use different methods to attract more children into the schools. Generally the TV ads about literacy and the government campaigns try telling the parents of the drop-outs and child laborers about the benefits of joining their children in schools. ‘A child laborer (in the literacy campaign ad), is sent to school, by his/her parents. In the ad, a young beautiful man/women, who is either a doctor or an engineer represents the same child laborer, who jumped into our educational system before twenty years.’ Are the ads educating the people about the uses of going to school…? Aren’t they depicting an unknown reality, which is not always true? Well, they are indirectly cheating the illiterate mothers and fathers of child laborers. It’s a matter of commonsense, that all the literates also have the hierarchy of jobs, salaries and positions in any society.

Our officials want the raise in literacy rates and fall in drop-out rates, so that they don’t loose their positions or jobs. So they use these unethical methods of attracting a set people, who believe what the ‘literate’ says is correct. In the today’s world…, at least in the today’s India, the education is an amazing business which needs no ethics or values…. ‘Education is the vital tool to imbibe values and ethics into the future citizens of the India .’