Effective Administration of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act: An Essential Step towards Eradication of Child Labour from India

There are many children who are still out of school, the hardest to reach, will be pulled in by the efforts emanating from ‘The Right to Education (RTE) Act”. It is expected that an estimated over one crore children, who have either dropped out of school or who have neither been to any educational institution or school will get free and compulsory education, as it would be binding on the part of local, State and Central governments so as to ensure that all children in the age six to 14 years age group get schooling. But we find that all the efforts made by the Government and Non-governmental organizations are not able to bear any fruits so far as most of the children are engaged in child labour industries and factories. More than 16 percent of the total child population between 5-14 years of age are involved in child labour. In 2010, the International Labour Organization estimated that 12.6 percent of children aged 10-14 in India are part of child labour and more than 20 million children are out of schooling system. One out of every seven children is a victim of some sort of social evil. Rampant child labour is violation of human rights and yet is considered to a ‘necessary evil’ in a developing country like India. Raising awareness of the problem is one of the most important roles for International action to increase educational opportunities for child labourers. Effective administration of RTE-Act, 2009 would be able to solve many of the problems being faced by the children who are working in hazardous small scale and other cottage industries. Community participation and mobilization can also help to eradicate child labour effectively. The author in the present paper tries to highlight the need of free and compulsory education for all children between the age groups 5-14 years, so as to effectively combat the menace of child labour. The present paper also focuses on the role of Non-governmental organization in eradication of child labour form the Indian society.