A 10x15 size room, brick walls, low tin roof. Bright letters - both Kannada and English - on colourful paper adorn the insides. Twelve children, around five years old, siblings in tow, are repeating the alphabet in a loud sing-song.
One boy, seemingly the brightest, is leading the chant, with a
teacher gently nudging him when he stumbles. This is a regular school day at the government-run Tent-shale (tent school) in Krishnappa Garden.
It is situated in the lap of the sprawling campus of DRDO establishment in CV Raman Nagar, right after the road surrounds the lake and veers towards the gleaming Bagmane Tech Park.
This tiny colony of around 300 huts is quite well concealed.
Migrants from rural Karnataka and a few from Tamil Nadu populate the colony, which hasn't yet got basic amenities like water, leave alone the luxury of electricity. Nevertheless, they have a school — Tent-shale for Class I and II.
The able-bodied of the colony are mostly construction workers, and others engage in low-wage labour. Before the government decided to open this school here, the young children were largely left to fend for themselves and their younger siblings when parents went out on work. Now the children spend the day — 9.30am to 3.30pm — at the school, along with the young ones, and take lessons in language and mathematics.
“They are an unruly lot, but are eager to learn. All of them are rather ambitious. Mariswamy, here, wants to be a doctor,” says Premaleela BR, the teacher, pointing out a boy, who came up with his homework book.
This school was established in 2006. Since then, every year, around 12 to 15 students pass from here to join the main school in Sadgundapalya for Class III. Thanks to the sustained efforts by NGO, The Concerned for Working Children (CWC), the colony elders are keen to educate their children. In fact, after repeated awareness programmes by the NGO, children in the colony organised themselves into groups called Bheema Sanghas, and collectively wrote to the Education Ministry requesting for such a facility.
The government, under the Sarva Shiksha Abhayan, set up the school to benefit children who cannot attend regular schools.
“As part of our Bheema Sangha, we recently organised a health camp. We went door to door, distributing posters and talking to people about health issues,” says Manjula D, a class 9th student at RBNMS school, from the colony.
Education isn't the only lure at the Tent-shale. Hot and healthy midday meals are a draw too. At noon, students queue up for it, and younger children, barely three-years-old, also come in with their plates. Snacks are also distributed later.
Though students were given uniforms, hardly anyone wears them,
but the teacher is kind enough not to enforce it. “I am glad they come here to study. That by itself is a big thing,” she says.
Deputy Coordinator of CWC urban field programme Manjunath G has been helping the children here with their education and related programmes. He has been working in this field for many years, and believes that much more needs to be done to keep these children away from work.
“Vocational training is necessary. These children come from poor backgrounds, and there is much pressure on them to earn. The normal rote education won't do enough for them. They need skill sets too,” Manjunath firmly believes.
CWC runs a residential vocational training school for such children near Kundapore, and close to 120 children pass out of it yearly. Over 50 of them come from migrant families. Presently, the Karnataka government is running its third action plan against child labour, a project they started in 2007. There are a few more tent schools in the city, and they do their bit to inculcate a thirst for education in children who, if not for them, could be soon be child labour.
But a mere peripheral glance is enough to note that an issue as serious as this requires many more measures.
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