Fwd: Out of School Survey - 4th July

Hello,

While there is full support for survey, if the plan to put unerasable
ink on fingers of children "caught" out of school is still on, then
I'd like to point to this PIL filed at Nagpur bench of High Court
regarding the matter. Kindly read the full text of the PIL. Please
keep in mind that the litigants are themselves lifelong champions for
childrens rights and education, including people leading major
alternative education movements like Gandhi's Nai Talim. One major
concern is that even children learning under NIOS or other open
schooling platforms or homeschooling (a recognized form of education
in most countries) or alternative education which don't involved
compulsory daily attendance, will get caught up and marked as being
out of school.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8sY5vZfk1W5flZoc3l4NHlJNUdkVW5UR2NJb0lfdjJra3hOUDk4RV9sbDVNaERrTlQtUmc

I have included in CC some of the PIL litigants. But requesting you to
resist knee-jerk reaction.

One colleague of mine who isn't connected with any of this and just
found out about the 4th July exercise today, asked me this simple
question:

If it is genuinely felt that putting unerasable black ink mark on
fingers of children will not cause any trauma and is not a negative
thing and is in no way "branding" them in any bad light, then why
don't the authorities invert this exercise and mark all the kids who
are ATTENDING school? This will be much easier to do, as all the
schools are at known locations and so the exercise will not involve
going door to door. Then any child found without the ink can be
detected to be NOT in school. The objective of the survey will be
accomplished, without going through a manhunt type activity. And if
they genuinely believe this inking of children is not a
negative-branding or trauma-causing activity and doesn't violate the
child's rights then there shouldn't be a problem.



Humble request to take out 20 minutes of your precious time, read the
PIL's full text and think deeply and clearly about exactly what we're
trying to do here and if it is truly the ONLY way to do it.

And I absolutely agree with you that this is coming at extremely short
notice : The PIL's next hearing was scheduled for yesterday only and I
have not received updates yet from the litigants of what happened. The
4th July exercise (which is a Maharashtra-wide exercise ordered by GoM
as the GR in the google drive folder will show) should have been
announced at least a few months earlier and there should have been an
open and inclusive HEARING about the matter, inputs from stakeholders
should have been taken before proceeding with it in such a dictatorial
manner. Thanks.


--
Cheers,
Nikhil [..]

(this was a reply to a broadcast email:)

On 7/2/15, Swadhar Pune [..] wrote:
> Why dont we give this to Radio Mirch and other FM stations
> [..]
>
> On Thu, 02 Jul 2015 15:00:16 +0530 ARC - Action for the Rights of Child Pune
>
> wrote
>>Respected All,
>
>
> All of you may be aware of that PMC is conducting survey on a large scale on
> 4th
> July to enroll out of school children in schools. More then 13000 teacher
> will
> participate in this survey. Survey will be conducted at ward level. The
> survey
> will focus on areas like construction sites, footpaths, public places and
> slum
> areas etc.
>
> PMC Education Board has provided central phone number-020 25534628 to
> receive
> complains/ guide citizens regarding enrollment of out of school children.Â
> In case NGOs/ citizens found any child out of school they can call on the
> number
> provided above to register complain or give information related to school
> enrollment of out of school children.Â
> In case you don';t get expected response from the PMC on the above number
> please
> do contact ARC Coordinators on [..]


( haven't taken permissions from people involved to share their
contacts. If you have further questions them please contact me on
nikhil.js [at] gmail.com )