South Asia
South Asia is home to 36 percent of the world’s children who should be attending school but, for a variety of reasons, aren’t. This is the second highest percentage in the world of children not attending school, following only sub-Saharan Africa.
Fact File
In 2001, about 42 million children in South Asia were not in school—more than half of these were girls. In India alone in 2001, 26.8 million children were not attending school.
A number of factors contribute to the fact that girls are often denied an education in South Asia. One reason is that in many South Asian countries, traditional culture often values boys over girls. One reason for this is that, in some families, when a girl is married her family must pay the groom’s family a price. This means daughters are often considered an expense and so families don’t want to spend money educating them.
Good News
In some areas in India, the government is trying to rectify this problem. The program Sarva Shiksha Abbiyan is designed to get all children into school, especially girls. The program ensures schools have clean water and sanitation so girls will be more likely to attend classes. It also assesses learning spaces to ensure they are girl-friendly. Child labor in India (and in much of South Asia) also prevents children from getting an education. Millions of children in the country are forced into hazardous working conditions, from making matches to working long hours on silk farms and being sold into bonded labor at carpet factories.
Fact File
UNICEF estimates that more than 12 million children in India are involved in hazardous child labor. This is more working children under the age of 14 than anywhere in the world.
Out of South Asia and Into the Classroom
Ask your students to see if they can find articles about child labor in South Asia. Suggest news sources like the BBC or CNN. Have them share an article that catches their attention with the rest of the class.
Sri Lankan children face some specific barriers to education and gender equality. One of these is that many Sri Lankan children are recruited as child soldiers into the armed conflict. As soldiers, they are forced to forgo their education. As of 2004, 50,000 children in the northeast of the country were not attending school because of the conflict.