A bunch of initiatives in Assam try to bring back migrant workers’ children to school, but the impact of the COVID-led break in their education lingers
Maitreyee Boruah
Saras Kumar Singh, originally from Bihar, proudly points to the word "Assam" written in Hindi on the wall of his evening school in Mathgharia, Guwahati, Assam. Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
GUWAHATI, Assam: "Meri gai bholi bhali, thodi gori thodi kaali (my cow is naïve, she is half white- half black)”. Saras Kumar Singh, 13, recited his favourite nursery rhyme in his soft voice, as his friends at an evening school in a Guwahati suburb listened in rapt attention, the poem serving as a reminder of their days in a regular school.
Saras dropped out of school in 2022 when he was in the fifth grade, and when his daily wage worker father finally gave up. His earning hit from March 2020 when the lockdown to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic was imposed, he had already suffered two years of wage losses and was staring at mounting debt when he took the difficult decision to pull his child out of school.
But last October, Saras returned to a free evening class. He was one among several children of migrant workers in this Guwahati settlement dominated by Hindi speaking migrants from Bihar. Most children here are still out of the formal education system, but a handful are gradually finding their way back into classroom learning aided by local nonprofits acting as a bridge.
The education of an estimated 25 crore children was impacted by the pandemic, many of them from the country’s poorest sections, according to campaigner estimates. Five years later, some children like Saras are hopeful.
"I want to study and become a police official," he told The Migration Story.
For his father, Sarbind Kumar Singh (40), fulfilling his child’s ambition is his life goal.
"He is my only child. As a father, I want him to escape a life of poverty and hardship and achieve something respectable. This can only happen if he continues his education,” said Singh, who obtained a two-wheeler license last year and has since been working for a ride-hailing service.
"Now, I earn Rs 300-400 a day. Most of my earnings go towards paying off my debts, but I also save daily for my son's education," he said.
Singh, a migrant from Bihar’s Vaishali district in Guwahati, worked as a daily wager until the pandemic struck shaving off his earnings and savings with no work in sight for months on end that resulted in him taking on more loans to make ends meet. The most serious casualty of his dip in earnings was his child’s education.
Babita Medhi (in a red salwar kameez) assists around 30 children of migrant labourers with their lessons every evening at Parthamik Hindi Vidyalaya in Mathgharia, Guwahati, Assam. Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
But last year, Saras joined the evening study centre at Parthamik Hindi Vidyalaya, Mathgharia, the school where he was a day scholar before the pandemic struck. Run by Snehalaya, a nonprofit, the study centre was designed for children of migrant labourers, with several similar classes underway in different parts of Guwahati. But classes here too halted during the pandemic, like Saras’s schooling.
"He has lost three crucial years of his education, but it is not too late. We are working to reintegrate Saras into the formal education system," said Babita Medhi, a social educator at Snehalaya, the nonprofit that runs the evening class and is closely monitoring Saras’s progress.
THE LEARNING GAP
For decades, migrant labourers from India’s Hindi-speaking belt of Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh have played a crucial role in the economy of Assam and other parts of the region. They work as loaders, rickshaw pullers, barbers, construction workers, brick kiln labourers, domestic workers, sanitation workers, vegetable vendors, and gig workers.
Some of these migrants are seasonal, spending up to six months in Assam while returning to their home states to tend to their crops during the rest of the year. Others live with their families. Several migrant labourers shared that they bring their families to Assam to stay close and ensure children attend school. Most of these children go to the Hindi medium schools in Guwahati.
But when the pandemic struck, some of the children of migrant labourers attending Hindi medium schools continued with their studies online, but others like Saras had to drop out.
The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022, which was released in 2023 by Pratham—an NGO focussed on improving the quality of education for underprivileged children—noted that literacy and arithmetic levels among children had declined post pandemic. “Nationally, children’s basic reading ability has fallen back to pre-2012 levels, undoing the gradual improvements made over the years. Similarly, children’s basic arithmetic skills have decreased compared to 2018 levels across most grades,” the report stated.
In Assam, the pandemic lockdown only exacerbated an already worrying learning gap amongst children of migrant workers. About 40% children of migrant workers do not have access to education, whether at their destination (where the migrant workers are employed) or at their place of origin (the workers’ native villages), according to a 2020 report by the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation.
The slippers of children outside the Narengi centre run by the NGO Snehalaya in Assam's Guwahati.
Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
Studies such as Migration in Northeast India: Inflows, Outflows and Reverse Flows during Pandemic reveal that at least 43% of the 5,72,064 individuals who moved to Assam for work and employment are from Bihar, Jharkhand, and Odisha. Among these inter-state migrants, Bihar was the highest with 1,47,742 individuals (29.82%) migrating to Guwahati, which is home to Assam's capital Dispur, as highlighted in the study, Inter-State Migration to Assam: A Study of Street Vendors in the City of Guwahati. Both reports are based on data from the Population Census 2011.
In 2020, a UNICEF research, Understanding Child Migration in India, found that one in every five migrants was a child, as also reflected in the Population Census 2011. This study used cluster analysis and revealed that children from the poorest migrant households are particularly vulnerable. They often have to work more and face limited educational opportunities.
People from impoverished states like Bihar and Jharkhand migrate for work to Guwahati and other parts of Assam. They often lack the opportunity to improve their lives and those of their children in terms of education and health benefits, said Rajib Sutradhar, assistant professor of economics at the North Eastern Hill University (NEHU) in Meghalaya.
Although some migrants have lived in the state for generations, they often reside in isolated, informal settlements or slums.
Children enjoy playing carrom inside the Narengi centre run by the NGO Snehalaya in Assam's Guwahati.
Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
Sutradhar, who specialises in labour and migration, noted that children of these migrant workers frequently face barriers to education. Many cannot attend school or dropout due to various reasons, such as the lack of accessible schools, the need to take care of the household or younger siblings while both parents work, or some even get engaged in child labour.
“The pandemic further deteriorated the educational prospects of these children, as many migrant labourers lost their livelihoods and could not afford their children's education. When classes transitioned to online formats during the pandemic, underprivileged children had little to no access to electronic devices for learning. As a result, many children dropped out of school, and there are fears that some may have become child labourers," Sutradhar added.
Pankaj Pandit, state programme associate, from Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) - India’s flagship programme to enrol out of school children into formal education - said that while there was no special drive target pandemic-hit children as such but they had continued ongoing programmes to enrol out-of-school children. The official added that these efforts included both six-month residential and non-residential programmes designed for children of parents who migrate for work.
THE BRIDGE
Children of the Anganwadi Centre in Arikati Basti, Guwahati, Assam. Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
A typical working day for Medhi (37), begins at 9 am with door-to-door visits to the homes of poor and migrant labourers in Mathgharia, a chaotic and polluted Guwahati suburb, which has a sizeable population of informal workers and is home to hectic construction activity.
The purpose of these visits is to ensure that children in the school-going age group attend classes. She also visits local government schools to check their attendance sheets.
It was during one of her visits last September, that Medhi met Saras. After speaking with his parents, she was able to convince them to enrol him in the evening classes, which serves as a bridge school to help dropouts return to formal education.
Inside a poorly lit, cold room of a dilapidated government school building, around 40 children aged 6-18 years, gather to study. Most of them hail from poor migrant worker families and speak Hindi, Bengali, or Assamese at home.
Currently, the 13-year-old is reviewing his class five lessons as he aims to be admitted to class six, this summer.
Medhi and her colleague, Sonmani Jaiswal Das (30), a social educator at the Narengi centre, said that children eagerly look forward to playing, painting, singing, and dancing.
The nonprofit has opened more centres following the lockdown, mainly in the city’s underserved parts, catering to marginalised communities and migrants.
SLIPPING THROUGH THE CRACKS
Nonprofit initiatives aside, a larger problem of out-of-school children remains unaddressed in this bustling city of Guwahati, which goes beyond the challenges the pandemic lockdown threw up.
In the northern part of the city lies Uzan Bazar's Jahajghat, with the Brahmaputra river flowing alongside. In one corner of Jahajghat, where boats are anchored along the riverbank, is Arikati Basti, an informal settlement and home to around 1,000 households, mostly natives from Bihar.
Seven-year-old Ankush Choudhury, whose parents are migrant workers from Bihar, lives here and has never been to school. His father struggles with alcoholism and mother works as a domestic help. Similarly, nine-year-old Muskan Choudhury does not attend school either. She was enrolled in a school until last year, but her father could no longer afford her education. "I work as a salesperson in a small grocery shop and earn around Rs 10,000 a month. With such a low income and the rising prices of food items, I cannot afford to send my daughter to school," said her father, Mahesh Choudhury (40).
For a good part of the day, Muskan and Ankush play around the Anganwadi Centre in Arikati Basti, where children up to six years of age are cared for and educated. Swapna Rani Deka Sarma, who works at the Anganwadi Centre, mentioned that there are some children aged 7-18 years in the area who do not attend school. "Around 20 children aged 3-6 years come to our centre. Poverty is primarily what keeps children out of school," she added.
In this locality, the government-run Mangalchandi Hindi Primary School operates. "The school is available, and despite providing free books and uniforms, some parents struggle to pay the one-time annual school fee. Additionally, there are other expenses associated with sending a child to school. Some parents do not enrol their children because they lack documents like an Aadhaar card to prove their residence in the area," said Madan Choudhury (54), a resident of Arikati Basti.
Unlike many cities across the country, the urban poor settlements in Guwahati have yet to be officially recognised as slums, as there is no slum board in the state to designate them as such. According to the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC), there are an estimated 163 non-notified, informal settlements in the city.
Girls from the evening school engaged in a lively game of kutkut, or hopscotch in Mathgharia, Guwahati, Assam. Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
These informal settlements can be found on hills, railway land, private land, and wetlands. Nevertheless, neighbourhoods like Arikati Basti still carry the suffix 'basti,' (which translates to ‘slum’). While Ankush spends most of his day playing around his neighbourhood, Chotu Rai (14) looks after the cows raised by his family in Narengi's Lala Basti. "My father is a milkman, and I help him look after the cows. I left school in 2024 and studied up to class eight," said Chotu, whose parents migrated from Kala Diara village in Bihar’s Patna district nearly two decades ago. When asked if he wanted to continue his studies in the future, Chotu smiled and replied, "I can try, but with my family's earnings, it is difficult."
Jharna Chakraborty, a child rights activist from Assam, said that there is a higher chance of school dropouts becoming child labourers. "Many of these children, particularly those from migrant families, work in hazardous environments such as construction sites and brick kilns. Rescuing these children requires extensive research and careful planning," added Chakraborty, who collaborates with government agencies, including the labour, and women and child welfare departments, to rescue and rehabilitate child labourers.
Officials at the Commissionerate of Labour in Assam stated that rescuing child labourers does not necessarily lead to their rehabilitation or enrolment in the formal education system. Ishanu Shah, deputy labour commissioner, told The Migration Story that one of the biggest challenges is tracking the rescued children who have been returned to their parents, as they might return to work to help contribute to the family income.
“It is also difficult to ascertain the status of children of seasonal migrant workers, as these families typically do not stay in one location for more than six months,” she said.
In addition to identifying out-of-school children, the SSS conducts counselling of parents to encourage them to enrol their children in school. Currently, at least 430 centres across Assam educate children of migrant workers, with many of these centres situated near brick kilns and quarries. Pandit said that seasonal migration is a significant factor contributing to the dropout rate among children in elementary education throughout Assam. "These initiatives aim to address this challenge and support the education of affected children."
Pinki Kumari enjoys playing cricket with her friends from evening school in Mathgharia, Guwahati, Assam. Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
Meanwhile, back in Saras’s school, children geared up for a game of cricket on a sunny February afternoon. Pinki Kumari's eyes sparkled with joy as she picked up a cricket bat, ready to hit the ball that was pitched her way at the playground of Mathgharia's Parthamik Hindi Vidyalaya. Makeshift stumps were created from stacked bricks, and while most players on the field were boys, Pinki was unfazed by the gender imbalance.
In the background, other girls from the evening school engaged in a lively game of kutkut, or hopscotch. When Pinki finally succeeded in hitting the ball, Saras, who was watching from the school’s verandah, erupted in applause.
Maitreyee Boruah is a Guwahati-based independent journalist
Comments