Three departments of the Delhi government will be working in close coordination to set up a boarding school for homeless children announced by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia during his budget speech. The AAP-led government has allocated Rs 10 crore for setting up such a school.
According to an official privy to the development, the modalities of the same will be worked out in a couple of weeks. "The modalities of the school will be worked out in close coordination with the Department of Social Welfare, Department of Women and Child Development (WCD) and the Department of Education," he told PTI.
Talking about how the idea of the school originated, the official said in the post-pandemic period, there was a surge in the number of homeless children. "It was observed that the number of children seen near traffic signals had increased after the pandemic as opposed to the pre-pandemic time. We did a pilot project in Malviya Nagar with the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) and district authorities to see that if they are provided residential facilities, how will they be benefitted. We identified the children, how they end up there and found that we may be able to prevent them from getting into begging by providing them residence," he said.
The government will be coming up with a full-fledged scheme. "The government has a commitment towards every child. Our school model is very inclusive and if there is a segment that is not attending school, we will have to assess the reasons and work on them," the official noted.
Another official said the WCD has been working on the issue of street children and had even issued guidelines for their identification. He said various NGOs and district authorities could also work on identifying such children. The data collected by district authorities of such children would come in handy for the education department, he said.
The policy had said there is no legal definition of street children. But Save the Children Organisation, in its report, “Surviving The Street: A Study of Street Children In Delhi” had given the reference of UNICEF, according to which three types of children belong to the category of street children.
The three categories of street children are -- those who run away from their families and live alone on the street; second is street-working children who spend most of their time on the streets fending for themselves, but return home on a regular basis; while the last category is children from street families who live on the streets with their families.
Mr Sisodia had proposed Rs 10 crore for setting up the boarding school, while noting that the government has taken several measures to provide basic education to the homeless children, but the measures have only been partially successful.
"It is not possible to get quality education unless basic facilities like food and shelter are in place. The Delhi government has decided to set up a boarding school with modern facilities for these underprivileged homeless children. These schools will try to bring them into the mainstream of society," he had said.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also spoke about the initiative during the post budget press conference and said steps taken in this direction in the past did not bear the desired results because they lacked human touch. Talking about the initiative, he said the children would be provided emotional and psychological support at the school that would have "five-star" facilities.
"When you stop at a traffic light, you do not pay heed to a child knocking at your window. Till date, no government has paid attention to the children standing at the traffic lights that is because they are not vote banks. "We will take care of them. Our government will build an excellent school for those children, they will stay there and study there. We will make them better citizens," Mr Kejriwal added.
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