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FY2001 - FY2006 appropriations for the Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) include $205 million to support international efforts to eliminate child labor through programs that will improve access to basic education in international areas with a high rate of abusive and exploitative child labor.
The Child Labor Education Initiative has four goals:
- Raise awareness of the importance of education for all children
and mobilize a wide array of actors to improve and expand education
infrastructures. The world community and individual nations have pledged to
advance a movement aptly called Education for All (EFA). In this spirit, it is
important that child laborers, an often-neglected group, be included in EFA
efforts. The Education Initiative will seek to raise awareness of the
importance of including child laborers in educational plans and programs. It
will also educate parents of the importance of sending their children to school
rather than to work. But awareness is not sufficient without concrete
commitment to improve and expand educational opportunities for child laborers.
The Education Initiative will also seek to expand this commitment by mobilizing
various actors including parents, community leaders, businesses, the media, the
entertainment industry, religious groups, and civil society organizations to
join in a partnership to improve schools and the school environment for all
children, including children removed from child labor. In collaboration with
their government these partners engage in actions such as school construction
and upgrading, provision of educational materials and development of remedial
and enrichment programs.
- Develop formal and transitional education systems that
encourage working children and those at risk of working to attend school. Child
laborers are children with special educational needs. Some have never attended
school or have been there so infrequently that they are far behind their peers.
Some encounter ostracism when they enter school. Some are so used to being in
the work force that they have a difficult time adapting to the formal school
environment. The Education Initiative will work to strengthen the capacity of
transitional and formal education systems to support the academic performance
and success of children removed from child labor, or at risk of entering it. It
will work to adapt and develop quality curricula that meets the needs and life
experience of these children. It will also work closely with school
administrators, teachers, parents and communities to ensure that education is
seen as relevant to the socioeconomic needs of the community.
- Strengthen national institutions and policies on education and
child labor. Although many countries have institutions and policies on
education and child labor, there may be gaps in the effective enforcement of
child labor and compulsory education laws. The Education Initiative will work
to strengthen national capacity for enforcement, and to track the academic
progress and achievement of children removed from child labor, and those at
risk of entering the labor force. Critical in this approach is improved
capacity to monitor key education indicators for these children, and to have
the monitoring data feed into education action policies and plans at the
national and local level, and in the management and teaching at schools where
these children attend.
- Ensure the long-term sustainability of these efforts. The
Education Initiative seeks sustainability at the financial, institutional and
community/family levels. It supports programs that are country driven, rather
than donor driven. In promoting country-ownership, it encourages increasing use
of host country resources in the financing, planning, and implementation of
education programs.
Click here for information about
Education Initiative projects and their implementing organizations funded from FY 2001 to
2002.
Click here for information about child
labor projects funded by USDOL in FY 2003, including Education Initiative projects and
their implementing organizations.
Click here for information about child
labor projects funded by USDOL in FY 2004, including Education Initiative projects and
their implementing organizations.
Join the listserv: ILAB maintains a listserv to inform interested
parties about new developments on the Child Labor Education Initiative. If you would like
to be added to the listserv, please call the International Child Labor
Program's main number at (202) 693-4843 and provide the contact name and the
email address (or fax number if preferred) of the individual/organization to be
added.
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