10,000 children engaged in odd jobs in Faridpur
Sunday, 22 March 2009
Our Correspondent
FARIDPUR, Mar 21: Children in the char areas of Faridpur are being deprived of education as they are forced to engage themselves in income generating activities due to abject poverty of their families.
Their parents send them to work for supplementing family income. Many parents in the char areas do not want their children to go schools as they are not aware of the importance of education.
According to a report of an NGO, working in the education sector in the char areas, about 10,000 children aged below 14 years in about 850 chars of the district are involved in different jobs.
Many of them even could not complete their primary education although the government primary schools do not take tuition fees and the government made primary education compulsory.
The female children are the worst victims of poverty as their parents neglect their right to education. The children mainly work in the crop fields as helpers, in houses as domestic helps and as shephards of grazing cattle etc.
Resma, a seven years' old girl, rears goats at Vagondanga char under sadar upazila in the district, does not know the name of her upazila and district. Every morning she goes to the field for grazing goats and returns home in the afternoon. Her father Habib Mia is a fisherman and mother Reba Khatun works in the fields as a seasonal labour.
Sahin (12) works at a local restaurant at Bhanga Bazar, Nazma (10) was admitted to a school in char Hajiganj under Charbhadrason upazila but later stopped going to school. However, her younger brother goes to a madrasa.
FARIDPUR, Mar 21: Children in the char areas of Faridpur are being deprived of education as they are forced to engage themselves in income generating activities due to abject poverty of their families.
Their parents send them to work for supplementing family income. Many parents in the char areas do not want their children to go schools as they are not aware of the importance of education.
According to a report of an NGO, working in the education sector in the char areas, about 10,000 children aged below 14 years in about 850 chars of the district are involved in different jobs.
Many of them even could not complete their primary education although the government primary schools do not take tuition fees and the government made primary education compulsory.
The female children are the worst victims of poverty as their parents neglect their right to education. The children mainly work in the crop fields as helpers, in houses as domestic helps and as shephards of grazing cattle etc.
Resma, a seven years' old girl, rears goats at Vagondanga char under sadar upazila in the district, does not know the name of her upazila and district. Every morning she goes to the field for grazing goats and returns home in the afternoon. Her father Habib Mia is a fisherman and mother Reba Khatun works in the fields as a seasonal labour.
Sahin (12) works at a local restaurant at Bhanga Bazar, Nazma (10) was admitted to a school in char Hajiganj under Charbhadrason upazila but later stopped going to school. However, her younger brother goes to a madrasa.