Access

For the universalization of education and ensure the education right of the Dalit, disabled, poor, disadvantaged groups and girl children from remote areas SOP (Branch School) have been promoted. It is approached to approve as a primary school by concerned DEOs. Similarly, with the objectives of mainstreaming the Dalit, girls and disabled children, child rights protector (CRP) is introduced in selected focus toles as an inclusive approach to reduce drop out and irregular students. The ultimate aim of CRP is to make child labour free tole. An individual from different walks-of-life, such as teachers, women, SMC members, youths, political leader, and parents speak out and advocate concerning child labour issues, the concept of child labour free toles and so on. Because of their enormous efforts along with the continuous support from the local community structures, toles have been declared as Child Labour Free Toles.

Impacts

The impacts of CRP’s efforts have been recognized by the government of Nepal. The Department of Education has introduced the concept of education promoter in a pilot phase in five districts of Nepal. The roles and responsibilities of these education promoters are similar to that of ASN’s CRPs. CRPs have been performing as Education Promoters, assigned by the DEO in ASN’s working areas in Dhanusha. This is also a valued achievement for ASN to integrate its best practices and policies into the government programs.

Implementation

To prepare older children (8-10 years of age) for studentship who are engaged in child labor and could not be enrolled in school at a grade level congruent with their age, a bridge course is introduced by conducting classes 3 to 5 hours per day. In most cases, these classes are conducted in the school to familiarize children with the school environment. The course books developed by the Department of Education are utilized. Two hundred and twenty-eight centres had conducted with 5756 (3580 female, 1501 Dalit) children to prepare them for the studentship and enrolled into school for mainstreaming them in the education. Some of those students are now studying up to diploma in engineering (overseer) and B. Ed. ASN also focuses to improve the retention and quality of learning of grades 1 and 2, which are usually neglected groups in the school environment and where teachers do not give importance to teach them.
 
Joint meetings are organized among women, parents, SMC, teachers, and children and form the mobile committee to get the name list of not school-going children with the support of CRPs. Such a committee collected the names of the children who are out of school at that time, do home visits for school enrolment. CRPs also supported children for enrolment into schools that did not have a birth registration card.