Child labourers get general, vocational edn in Rajshahi

RAJSHAHI, Sept 8 (BSS): With the good intension of protecting child labourers from risky and hazardous jobs many underprivileged working children are getting technical and vocational education under Privileged Children Education Programme (UCEP) in the city.
Around 4,200 working children are studying in five feeder schools under the UCEP in the city. "Every year, we are enrolling around 500 to 550 students in six-month course and similar number of students passes out," AKM Mohsin, Divisional Coordinator of UCEP, said this while talking to BSS here Sunday.
In another six-month course, 600 adolescents are also getting technical education on various trades from UCEP Rajshahi Technical School. He said the schools are being operated in an effort to transform the underprivileged working children into productive human resources. "Our aim is to eliminate child labourers from the society," Mohsin asserted adding the children are being trained to give them proper place in the society.
"Mainly, we teach them on how to show their best performance in working place besides how to protect them from exploitation, abuse and neglect," he added.
Many other teaching and learning issues like life, health, nutrition, education, care, leisure, recreation and how to participate to expression, information and thought are being practiced. After passing out the course, many of the trained adolescents earn Taka 7,000 to 8,000 per month from their employers, Mohsin revealed. Meanwhile, number of children engaged in various jobs may be around one lakh in the city but in many cases, future of them remains uncertain, sources concerned said.
"We are working to improve living and livelihood condition of around two lakh poor and extreme poor population especially women and children through various anti-poverty programmes in the city," Mahbubul Alam, Town Manager of Urban Partnership for Poverty Reduction Project (UPPRP), said.
"We have no direct intervention to reduce the number of child labourers," Alam admitted. He, however, said the anti-poverty components will ultimately yield a positive result towards reducing the pockets of child labour.
"To meet up the social needs, child labour has become quite widespread as many families rely on the income generated by their children for survival," Advocate Abdus Samad, local coordinator of Bangladesh Legal Aid Services Trust, said.