Re-Conceptualizing Child Work Policies: A Strategy for Increasing School Enrolment for Children in Special Family Circumstances
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Date
2012
Authors
Wambiri, G.
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Volume Title
Publisher
International behaviour association
Abstract
Efforts to eradicate child labour have largely been misconstrued to mean that child work keeps children away from school. Although work could keep children away from school. There are other factors that influence school attendance. This paper suggests that a complex interaction of other relevant variables, that are specific to the realities of individual children determine this relationship. In some cases, work can be the catalyst that makes schooling a reality. The Government of Kenya in 2003 banned paid work for school-going age children as a strategy of ensuring that all children are enrolled in school. The study on which this paper is based reported that there are children that are living in special poverty-related family conditions that necessitate them to earn if they are going to have their basic needs met, without which they cannot go to school. Some of these children are negotiating paid work and schooling through informal school-work arrangements with secret employers and teachers. Such informal arrangements provide a bridge to schooling, thus allowing formal learning to varying extents. This paper takes the perspective that children's circumstances around the world, or even in one locale, are not and can never be universal. It argues that child-work policies that work elsewhere or for other children may not universally work for every child. Recommendations include the need to re-conceptualize the relationship between schooling and child work, taking children's circumstances into consideration with a view of coming up with child work policies and operational systems that increase school enrolment for children in these special economic and family circumstances
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Citation
International behaviour association, Vol. NO.1 January/February/March 2012