Policy Interventions for Getting Child Laborers into School

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Policy Interventions for Getting Child
Laborers into School April 2009
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Part 1. Child labour and education
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• Rates of childrens work and school attendance
  are negatively correlated (but large
  cross-country variation suggests substantial
  scope for policy intervention)
• Childrens work is associated with both lower
  school intake and late school entry
• Childrens work is associated with higher
  drop-out
• Childrens work is associated with higher grade
  repetition (indirect evidence also of a negative
  link between child labour and school performance)
• Childrens work is associated with lower academic
  test scores, and other direct indicators of
  school performance (eg, UCW and WB, Cambodia)
• For more details see www.ucw-project.org

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• Hard to reach children or children to reach?
• In many countries more than 20 per cent of
  children are working only
• In other countries many children combine school
  and work
• In countries where school attendance is very
  high, still many children continue to work while
  attending school
• EFA and the elimination of child labour are joint
  objectives, as education and child labour are
  joint outcomes, requiring cross sectoral and
  holistic approaches

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Part 2. IDENTIFYING POLICY OPTIONS FOR REDUCING
CHILD LABOR General considerations
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GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

• Child labour is a complex phenomenon that cuts
  across policy boundaries education, health,
  labour markets, capital markets, social security,
  economic growth and income distribution all play
  an important role
• Achieving a sustainable reductions in child labor
  therefore requires a policy response that is
  cross-sectoral in nature
• Two target groups are of particular relevance
• (1) children at risk of involvement in child
  labor
• (2) children already in child labor.

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GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
Child laborers
TARGETED ACTION is needed to identify, rescue
and offer education to child laborers in worst
forms of child labor
SECOND CHANCE policies are critical to bring
out of school children to school and also to
avoid large numbers of children entering
adulthood in a disadvantaged position as a result
of early work
children at risk of involvement in child labor
PREVENTION policies addressing factors underlying
decisions to put children to work constitute the
main burden for a sustainable reduction of child
labor
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Part 3. PREVENTING CHILD LABOUR Influencing
household decisions concerning childrens time use
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PREVENTING CHILD LABOUR

• the design of preventive measures requires an
  understanding of factors influencing HH decisions
  relating to schooling and work

• addressing factors affecting the relative "price"
  of children's time, household resource
  constraints and household vulnerability to
  shocks, is particularly important in this context

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Social protection policies

• Removing the resource constraint
• Transfer programs, CCT
• Positive impact on education and on child work,
  but more analysis is required for child labour
  (several programs)
• Microfinance
• Positive effects, especially on education (India,
  Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Uganda)
• Gender issue the effects seem to limited to or
  stronger for boys

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Social protection policies

• Risk reducing/coping policies
• Complex policies, few examples
• Argentina (Jefes and Jefas) China (SWPRP) show
  impact on poverty, no information on work and
  schooling

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Education

• Reducing the costs
• CCT, uniforms, free meals, scholarships etc.
• Positive evidence from Kenya, Indonesia
• More analysis for impact on work
• Improving access to school
• Well documented
• Improving school quality
• Preliminary evidence small effect on attracting
  children, larger in retaining (Conafe

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Education

• Expanding early childhood education/health
  opportunities
• Evidence of impact on education (Uganda
  Tanzania), more analysis needed for child labour

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Infrastructure

• Improving access to basic services
• Strong evidence
• Examples of impact assessment Social Funds in
  various countries

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Youth labour market policies

• Strong rationale, indirect evidence, no program
  assessment relative to education

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Part 4. SECOND CHANCE LEARNING
OPPORTUNITIES Mitigating the harm of early
exposure to work
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SECOND CHANCE LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

• second chance policies are critical to avoiding
  large numbers of children entering adulthood in a
  disadvantaged position
• only apparently less significant than preventive
  measures in resource terms
• children with little or no schooling obviously at
  much greater risk of joining the ranks of the
  unemployed and the poor.
• if left alone, these children and youth are
  likely to be in need of other (more costly)
  remediation policies at a later stage of their
  life cycle
• Critical interventions to avoid that the possible
  impact of the current crisis

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SECOND CHANCE POLICIES
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SECOND CHANCE LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

• flexible schooling programs are designed to make
  school more accommodating of the exigencies of
  work, and therefore at increasing school
  attendance and reducing drop-out among child
  laborers.
• they help balance the learning and earning needs
  of families and children by facilitating fluid
  work/study schedules.
• international programming experience points to a
  number of policy options for helping children to
  combine work and school more easily, including
• (a) flexible delivery modes, designed to make
  schooling more accommodative of childrens work
  schedules and
• (b) adaptive curricula, designed to make course
  contents more relevant to the lives of working
  children

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SECOND CHANCE LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

• The main challenge is to identify programs
  suitable to be scaled up to the (large) needs,
  assess their costs and define the linkage with
  the formal education system.
• EFA objectives can be fully achieved if second
  chance learning if strategies are inclusive of
  second chance learning opportunities

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Part 5. TARGETED ACTION Removal, recovery and
reintegration of children in worst forms of child
labour
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TARGETED ACTION

• short-term direct action is needed to ensure the
  removal, recovery and reintegration in education
  of working children whose rights are most
  compromised
• target groups include trafficked children,
  children subjected to commercial sexual
  exploitation, and children facing other forms of
  hazard or exploitation in the workplace

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TARGETED ACTION
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Part 5. NATIONAL CAPACITY Creating an "enabling
environment" for child labor reduction
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NATIONAL CAPACITY

• Achieving sustainable reductions in child labour
  also requires a supportive national political,
  legal and institutional environment.
• political commitment is needed to ensure that
  child labour is mainstreamed into broader
  development plans and programmes.
• labour legislation consistent with
  international child labour norms is necessary
  both as a statement of national intent and as
  legal and regulatory framework for efforts
  against child labour.
• As child labour is an issue that cuts across
  sectors and areas of ministerial responsibility,
  progress against it requires that institutional
  roles are clearly delineated, and that effective
  coordination and information-sharing structures
  are in place.