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Enrolling and Retaining Slum Children in Formal Schools: A Field Survey in Eastern Slums of Kolkata
Abstract
India is yet to achieve the goal of universalisation of elementary education or 100 per cent enrolment and retention of children with schooling facilities in all habitations. Despite the government's attempt to achieve this goal through the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, which has a special focus on girl children, students belonging to disadvantaged families still do not attend classes regularly. This paper examines various reasons for poor attendance behaviour of students in formal schools. On the basis of a study in the eastern slums of Kolkata, it finds that retaining the students in a formal school is far more difficult than enrolling them, particularly if the students are from very poor economic backgrounds.
... 8 Prior to the more radical phase of the women's movement of the 1980s, non-feminist perspectives on education perceived education as functional to women's competent performance in the gender division of labour. Challenging such ideas and locating the issues in wider definitions of development, liberal feminist analyses underscored the shackles imposed by sex-gender systems that restricted access and educational content for women (Kelly and Elliot 1982;and Smock 1981). ...
... 11 Several studies have focused on teachers, drawing attention to their inefficiencies as well as the difficulties faced by them (Bhatty 1998;Sharma 1997;and Vaidynathan and Nair 2001). Research has also identified systemic constraints to the achievement of targets (Banerji 2000;Kaul 2001;Khasnabis and Chatterjee 2007;Leclercq 2003;and Rana and Das 2004). Overall, studies catalogue a general decline of the state system. ...
This chapter explores the sociological aspects of educational inequality in India. There is little coherent understanding of changing patterns of educational inequality, and few clear-cut pointers to explanations for continued non-participation in, and non-completion of schooling on the part of a significant number of children. The author believes that this state of affairs arises out of the theoretical inadequacies and political conservatism that characterizes much of the study of educational inequality. The author also critiques the new research agenda by analysing the issue of unequal educational access and attainment in elementary education, with a focus on those subordinated by caste, class, and gender, and identifies crucial areas that are missing in our understanding of the influence of social processes in student participation in education and in shaping the educational system. The author points to the need for a critical systemic exploration of the education system as a subsystem of society in which school structure, organization, and processes are to be placed in wider political economy and stratified social structure based on wealth and social status. The author concludes by stressing the need to open up the issue of educational inequality to wider debates operating at the level of economy, polity, and society, and to adopt wider perspectives in sociological studies of the education system.
... These factors impeded the educational journey of their children. Additionally, children were burdened with domestic responsibilities both inside and outside the home, limiting their ability to focus on studies (Khasnabis & Chatterjee, 2007). Social issues such as alcoholism, drug addiction, and associated disorders further impacted the educational needs of these children. ...
The paper explores how being the resident of an industrial slum affects the children's access to education and tehir educational aspirations.
... Khasnabis and Chatterjee [17] studied enrolling and retaining slum children in formal schools. They discovered that India still needs to achieve the goal of universalizing elementary Education, which aims for 100% enrollment and retention of children in schooling facilities in all areas. ...
Raising a society's socioeconomic status is a crucial function of Education. A large part of India's urban poor live in slums and lack access to formal schooling. For various reasons, many slum children (those between 6 and 14) do not attend school. Children from low-income families living in slums are the target population, and this Study aims to examine the variables that affect their access to and satisfaction with educational opportunities. Opportunities, access, and equality in local Education are the foci of this research. Accessibility, the role of teachers and parents, the physical environment, essential elements, and the importance of Education were among the main characteristics gathered by this tool. Frequency analysis and the chi-square test examined various variables and their potential correlations with educational attitudes. It is crucial to investigate if the educational opportunities, equity, and access provided to children in slums have any positive results. A significant discovery emphasizes the vital role of parents. Parents influence their children's opinions on the value of Education by their example. According to the report, parents should be empowered via awareness programs and support structures. Despite the importance of expanding access, the Study shows that more is needed to provide access; quality must also be improved. Because of this, funding for schools, their resources, and specific programs to educate teachers are all urgently needed.
... Students also feel that their teachers pick on them and take disciplinary action for no-fault; hence, creating challenges towards the school's requirements. Such complexities tend to be the early signs of detachment (Khasnabis & Chatterjee, 2007;Singh, 2015). Although private school enrolment is higher in urban areas among informal settlements, there is still a disparity between children from well-off families accessing private schools and children from low-income families going government schools. ...
Classroom practices form an array of integrated teaching and learning strategies conducive to the real world. Lesser is known about the classroom practices experiences among the students belonging to the informal settlements in private schools of India. The paper presents a brief insight into barriers to classroom practices with a self-prepared assessment tool, namely Classroom Practice Position (CPP). It can aid teachers in prioritising practices for balancing participation in the classroom. The measure will help to determine the placement of classroom routine activities. The paper highlights the data from the perspectives of 58 students in Rourkela (a city in the State of Odisha, India) through a sequential exploratory method and data analysis with SPSS v.20. The CPP tool indicates that peer support from the well-performing students helps in mitigating stereotypes, in completion of classwork, identity and familiarity with teachers.
... There is also decline in their attendance resulting in their poor educational participation. Another research study supporting it further states that the guardians of the students belonging to the disadvantaged families do not assign much value to the elementary education ( Khasnabis and Chatterjee, 2007). The educational background of the parents, especially of the mother, plays a key role for more successful educational biographies of children. ...
... Without insisting upon any minimum number of households, it defines a variety of undesirable living conditions that usually pertain to households in slums: 1) Inadequate access to safe water 2) Inadequate access to sanitation and infrastructure 3) Poor structural quality of housing 4) Overcrowding 5) Insecure residential status (4) upgrading, accessed 10 may 2018. Kumar (2000), "Urban economic growth, infrastructure and poverty in India: lessons from Visakhapatnam", Environment and Urbanization Vol 12, no 1, pages 185-196;also harriss, John (2005), "Political participation, representation and the urban poor: findings from research in Delhi", Economic and Political Weekly Vol 40, no 11, pages 1041-1054; Khasnabis, Ratan and Tania Chatterjee (2007), "Enrolling and retaining slum children in formal schools: a field survey in eastern slums of Kolkata", Economic andPolitical Weekly Vol 42, no 22, pages 2091-2098;mahadevia, Darshini (2010), "Tenure security and urban social protection links: India", IDS Bulletin Vol 41, no 4, pages 52-62;mitra, arup (2006), "labour market mobility of low income households", Economic andPolitical Weekly Vol 41, no 21, pages 2123-2130;and Unni, Jeemol and Uma Rani (2007), "Informal workers in ahmedabad City", in annapurna shaw (editor), Indian Cities in Transition, Orient longman, Chennai, pages 217-237. ...
Projections suggest that most of the global growth in population in the next few decades will be in urban centres in Asia and Africa. Most of these additional urban residents will be concentrated in slums. However, government documentation of slums is incomplete and unreliable, and many slums remain undocumented. It is necessary to employ creative methods to locate and sample these understudied populations. We used satellite image analysis and fieldwork to build a sample of Indian slums. We show that living conditions vary along a wide-ranging continuum of wellbeing; different points correspond to different policy needs. We also show that most variation in conditions is due to differences across rather than within neighbourhoods. These findings have important implications for urban policy. First, satellite data can be a useful tool to locate undocumented settlements. Second, policy must be appropriately nuanced to respond to wide-ranging needs. Finally, variation patterns suggest that policies should be targeted at the neighbourhood rather than the individual level.
... There is also decline in their attendance resulting in their poor educational participation. Another research study supporting it further states that the guardians of the students belonging to the disadvantaged families do not assign much value to the elementary education ( Khasnabis and Chatterjee, 2007). The educational background of the parents, especially of the mother, plays a key role for more successful educational biographies of children. ...
The main objective was to study the risk taking behaviour of
parentally accepted and rejected children. Rohner’s Parental
Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire (PARQ) Child Form- (1978) was
used to identify the parentally accepted and rejected children and
after administering this questionnaire the sample was selected which
comprised of parentally accepted children (N=204) and parentally
rejected children (N=204). Self-constructed risk taking behaviour
scale was used to collect the data. The data was analysed by using
Mean, S.D and t-test. The results reveal that parentally accepted
children are low on unhealthy risk taking behaviour as compared
to parentally rejected children. Parentally accepted children exhibit
low or no unhealthy academic risk; exhibit less or no unhealthy
social risk; are low on unhealthy future/goals risk. They are less
interested in the adventurous risks which are dangerous for their
health in particular and life in general in comparison to parentally
rejected children who exhibit unhealthy adventurous risk. Both
parentally accepted and rejected children exhibit average level of
unhealthy security/peace risk like protesting against human rights
violation without caring about their own life which may be due to
the fact, that state is facing armed conflict since 1989.
... To the best of the authors' knowledge, investigations on how academic performance is affected by the geographical attributes of informal settlements that are prevalent in developing countries are rare in the literature. Many studies have examined the neighbourhood effects of disadvantaged communities on education outcomes in wealthier nations (Dyson and Raffo 2007;Gordon and Monastiriotis 2006;Ludwig et al. 2001;Raffo et al. 2009;Webb-Prather 2011;Webber and Butler 2007), however, only few papers have investigated student performance in the context of informal settlements and urban schools in developing countries as seen in Stevenson and Chen (1989), Feitosa et al. (2007), Ratan and Tania (2007), da Cunha et al. (2009) and Monteiro and Rocha (2013). It is generally understood that poverty levels are lower in urban areas than rural areas (Alkire et al. 2014) since the social and economic infrastructure (e.g., schools, hospitals, roads, electricity, water supply, sanitation, etc.) tends to be available in urban areas. ...
This study investigates how physical urban environments affect academic performance of urban public elementary schools in the Philippines by analysing the physical environment of school facilities and slum areas. Global, local, and semi-parametric regression analyses indicate that there is disproportionate provision of resources among the government schools and that lower academic performance is associated with the provision of fewer clinics rather than the proximity to poverty hotspots. Semiparametric, geographically weighted regression modelling outperformed global and local modelling, and estimated up to 30 % of the variation in math scores where the semi-parametric regression model is based on each school’s number of teachers and rooms, building conditions, availability of health clinics, and the location of slum areas near the school. On the basis of the research findings, it is concluded that the current state of school buildings is adequate and is a lower priority than the provision of health care support and smaller pupil–teacher ratios. Hence, government programs that aim to enhance the academic performance of children from the deprived physical urban environments should prioritize the provision of health clinics as well as maintaining few large schools with small pupil–teacher ratios.
Fear of failure is a motive to avoid failure in most evaluative situations based on anticipatory shame upon failure of the person in concern. This study aims at finding the gender difference in fear of failure among indigent adolescents of Kalina, Mumbai. For this, the sample size of 87 indigent adolescents was taken among which 54 were females and 33 were males. Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory (PFAI) by David E. Conray, Ph.D. was used and has high reliability. Exploratory research design was used for the study. This study gives further scope for parents, counselors, educational sectors and social workers to give needful opportunities to the males and females living in slum areas to acknowledge their levels Fear of Failure with a foresight of reducing it. The research data obtained from the adolescents of Kalina mumbai, were the residents of the nearest slum area called Dharavi, which is Asia’s largest slum area which indeed helps the research to generalize the data obtained.
Education is an important ingredient of human resource development. It contributes to well-being of individuals by improving income and standard of living. Elementary education in India, in general, has shown considerable improvement over the past few decades, but the educational level of slum residents in India is very low, and there is an urgent need to improve the educational achievement of urban slums. The objectives of this paper are to: find out the availability of the government primary school in slums across different states of India, analyze the improvement in the condition of primary level educational facilities during 2007–2012, and demonstrate the sources of improvement in the condition of educational facilities at primary level in slums of India. The results show that 59.40% of slums were within the distance of half kilometer from the government primary schools. Improvement in the educational facilities at primary level during 2007–2012 was reported by 30% of slums, and “no improvement” by 57% of slums. At India Level, less than 1% and in West Bengal 4% of the total slums reported decline in the elementary level educational facilities. Out of the total improvement at the primary level educational facilities in slums in India has been found by the effort of government of India and 17% by the NGOs; however, some variations have also been noted across different states of India.
I hereby declare that the thesis entitled “An Economic analysis of
Environmental and Health Conditions of Urban Slum Dwellers” (A Study on
Two Urban Slums in Visakhapatnam City, Andhra Pradesh) submitted by me to
Andhra University, Visakhapatnam for the award of the Degree of Doctor of
Philosophy in Economics is original and it has not been submitted previously in
part or full to this or any other university for any Degree, Diploma or Prize.
Visakhapatnam (
This volume examines the history and research on the sociology of education (SoE) in India. It analyses the influence of culture, identities, structural inequalities, and poverty on education, and evaluates how sociological tools can be used to address the impending crisis in the educational system. The consistent study of SoE has been slow in India, as is evident in the only recent attempts to establish the structure of the discipline. This volume places the SoE as a sub-discipline of Indian sociology, with the first few studies on education being undertaken in the 1950s/1960s by Kothari Commission (1964-6). The book emphasizes the need to grow the sociological imagination as there is still a lack of understanding of education as a social institution and its interlinkages with poverty, cultural diversity, and the world of work. This book attempts to deal with how structural inequalities, cultural diversity, and identities of different social groups mediate institutional practices and influence learning. These are areas of research where sociologists of education in India have a critical role to play.
Poverty is considered to be the most important cause of child labour and it deprives children of schooling and acquiring human skill. The poor children grow as unskilled workers and earn low wages in adulthood. So, poverty persists and the parents are forced to send their children to work and a child-labour trap is formed. The econometric analysis using state level panel data in the Indian context demonstrates that poverty, illiteracy and child labour are significantly correlated. The results show that poverty adversely affects children’s schooling and education and results in persistence of poverty thereby creating a child-labour trap.
This study of 14 Bangalore slum communities, including detailed interviews with 1,481 residents, represents an initial effort to study social mobility in India's largest cities, where opportunity and inequality have both been rising. The results show that slum dwellers have advanced economically, but the extent of improvement is small in the majority of cases, and there are many reversals of fortune. Sons tend to follow fathers or uncles into informal and mostly low-skilled occupations. The majority have lived in slums for many generations. These restricted-entry low-exit situations are brought about in large part on account of multiple institutional disconnections.
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