Education for Child Workers

It is disheartening to see children working hard instead of going to school just because their families could not afford to provide their basic necessities e.g. food, clothing, shelter, and could not send them to school due to lack of financial resources. I  would like to believe that it is not enough reason for these children to stop learning just because their families are economically challenged. There are alternative learning systems that can be availed of as discussed in the following article:

Photo courtesy of http://www.ilo.org/

Non-traditional education boosts child workers’ access to education

By Jerome Yanson

Technology is now paving the way for the world’s child workers to be educated. An estimated 250 million child workers worldwide, one hundred fifty-three million or 61% or which can be found in Asia, may finally gain tools for them to eventually be drawn away from child labor.

In a policy memo on “Reducing Child Labor through Education: Innovative Uses of Technology,” Hawaii-based Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (PREL) suggested an alternative technology-based solution to the inability of child workers, particularly those in the rural areas, to avail of education.

PREL recognized the limitations of traditional education services to reach child laborers in the rural areas and the frustrations of formal school systems to meet the basic learning objectives. The memo pointed out that low-cost technology could be an effective and appropriate alternative in bringing education closer not only to child laborers but also to their parents and community.

Costs and Access Problems     

For an estimated four million Filipino child workers aged between 5 to 17 years old, PREL’s solution is indeed good news. In a survey on working children done in 2001, one-third of the surveyed child workers did not attend school due to loss of interest and high cost of schooling. A majority of them, the survey showed, dropped out of school because of high costs. Even with free primary and secondary education, most poor households simply cannot afford to send their children to school because the attendant costs are too much for a low-income family.

In most poor rural areas, many children would rather work than go to school on order to earn money and help provide for their family’s basic needs. Many if not all of them are not properly paid and are exposed to hazardous working conditions.

A study also found out that some Filipino children stop going to school because of lack of access to schools. The distant location of schools from the child’s dwelling or place of work hinders the pursuit of primary education. Access to schools is also limited due to lack of classrooms or schools, high student-to-teacher ratios, high percentage of unqualified and under-qualified teachers and poor physical school environment particularly in poor regions.

Solving the Problem

PREL offers some alternative solutions to these constraints. One alternative is the use of satellite video and internet. Delivery through low-cost satellite dish or antenna, receiver and television can provide access to educational programming. Strategic placement of a television in a school or community center, PREL says, can have an enormous impact on the learning potential in the classroom, allowing on-demand content streaming at any time of the day or week. Meanwhile, access to Internet will allow schools to download educational materials for the classroom, providing teachers with new resources for instructions.

Another alternative is the use of broadcast radio and television. Television and radio stations can broadcast and rebroadcast educational and community development programming at different times to target the largest possible audience. Radio and television broadcast makes instructions and information accessible to a large audience with cheapest requirements such as simple transistor radio and television set.

Multimedia and print materials are also effective means of alternative learning. Computers, VCDs, DVDs and other audio-video materials placed in a school or community center can provide education and community development information as stand-alone training or as supplement to other training mediums. Printed materials such as magazines, flyers and pamphlets can be used to disseminate information about education and community development programs against child labor.

These innovative ways of using technology as a form of non-traditional education can be an effective alternative method for child laborers to gain knowledge outside formal schooling system, for their parents to be aware of the physical, emotional and psychological effects of child labor on children, and for the community to strengthen partnership with community organizations toward mobilizing the people to reduce child labor, particularly in remote and rural communities and, consequently, reintegrate child laborers into the formal educational system. (Published in Bata Man, Vol. V, No. 2, July 2005, Manila, Philippines. Bata Man is an advocacy magazine for child labor published by DOLE, ILO, UNICEF, DepED, DSWD, PIA, TUCP and VFA)                

Church-Labor Connection

I never thought the Catholic Church would find enough time to get involved in matters relating to labor and employment. But it actually did. In a forum specially organized for the Church-Labor Conference, claiming to be an alliance of church groups and labor organizations in the Philippines, the Catholic Church expressed its concern on the long-standing issues of workers (unemployment, security of tenure and right to self-organization) and vowed to support the workers in their fight to address these issues.

Labor and employment issues are usually tackled in policy discussions among labor, management and government representatives. You would not expect the priests and all other sacred cows to preach about how employers should behave and what workers should get in return for their hard work. But I was amazed to find out that the Church had its own literature on such topics as human work, wages and unionism, eventually making its way connected to labor advocacy.              

The connection is found in what the Church calls the Catholic Social Teaching (CST). Fr. Enrico Adoviso of the Archdiocese of Manila Labor Center explains that CST refers to “a limited body of literature written in the modern era that is a response of papal and episcopal teachers to the various political, economic and social issues of our time.” It “encompasses all the ideas and theories that have developed over the entire history of the Church on matters of social life.” Simply put, it is understood as “an effort by the pastoral teachers of the church to articulate what the broader social tradition means in the era of modern economics, politics and culture.”

Believe it or not, the Church has its own substantial explanation of what a “wage” is as found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2434:

“A just wage is the legitimate fruit of work. To refuse or withhold it can be a grave injustice. In determining fair pay, both the needs and the contributions of each person must be taken into account. Remuneration for work should guarantee humans the opportunity to provide a dignified livelihood for themselves and their family on the material, social, cultural and spiritual level, taking into account the role and the productivity of each, the state of the business, and the common good (Gaudium et Spes, #67). Agreement between the parties is not sufficient to justify morally the amount to be received in wages.”

Another scripture on the relationship between the workers and employers is articulated in Rerum Novarum # 20:

“Among the most important duties of employers, the principal one is to give all workers what is justly due them. Assuredly, to establish a rule of pay in accord with justice, many factors must be taken into account. But, in general, the rich and employers must remember that no laws, either human or divine, permit them for their own profit to oppress the needy and the wretched or to seek gain from another’s want. To defraud anyone of the wage due him/ her is a great crime that calls down avenging wrath from Heaven: Behold, the wages of the laborers . . . which have been kept back by you unjustly, cry out: and their cry has entered into the ears of the Lord of Hosts (Jas 5:4).”

Summarizing the scriptures in Tagalog, Fr. Adoviso says: “Dapat tandaan ng mga mayayaman na walang batas ang nagbibigay sa kanila ng karapatan upang alisan o bawasan ng takdang sahod ang manggagawa.”

Labor-Management Education

We need not wait for Sen. Miriam Santiago's bill (Plain Language Act) to be signed into law before taking efforts to improve and promote clear communications among government offices. Government agencies should improve their communication system even before the bill takes its first reading in Congress.

Take, for instance, the initiative of the Bureau of Labor Relations to simplify the approach in educating the workers, would-be workers, once-upon-a-time workers, and even the employers (yes, sometimes they need to be reeducated) on the complexities of labor and employment. The BLR has recognized the need to do so because many workers, even those who have retired from employment, still do not know their rights at work…And because some employers, even the bigger companies, continue to violate the constitutional rights of the workers.

Thus, the need to restructure and redesign the approach in educating the Filipino workforce  in such a way that the workers easily understand information on labor and employment through written words is indespensable. Restructuring and redesigning the approach would mean departing from the “governmentalese” way of communicating.    

This is where the plain language bill comes into the picture. Workers should be given “clear, concise and well-organize” information for them to have easy access to livelihood and employment opportunities and ensure that theirs rights at work are protected. Again, just to emphasize, information dissemination should be done using plain and simple language.

If, for instance, information is to be developed in a question-and-answer format, it must be done in such a way that is it easily understood by all kind of workers – either by college or elementary graduates. Using these guidelines as provided by a government communication expert may be of help:     

1. Use simple and non-technical language and keep in mind the adage that “there is beauty in simplicity."
2. Questions must be direct.
3. Answers must be to the point, clear and precise.
4. The active voice produces the simplest and shortest statement. Avoid the passive voice, which is the most common illness of governmentalese lingo.
5. Keep sentences short, paragraphs even shorter.

The question, however, is that: how plain is plain and how simple is simple? Is there a hard and fast rule on the use of simple language? One could argue that what is simple to some may not be simple to others. Or what is simple to others may not be simple to some. 

This may be true to a certain extent, but the bottom-line is how the message is developed. The Plain Language Act, I believe, can help solve the issue on the use of simple English language, as it requires government agencies to adopt clear guidelines in communicating with the public once it is passed into law. It will help boost not only the government’s labor education program but the entire government communication system as well.