Scholarship helps the migrant students to pursue higher education

Education is a luxury which only a few can afford, especially if it is higher education for the migrants. The Right to Education has made education a fundamental right for every child between the ages of 6 and 14 and specifies minimum norm in elementary schools but this does not apply for the higher and professional education.

Although India has the third-largest higher education system in the world after US and China, according to the world bank. The downside is the cost of accessing such an education system. According to the Report of the NSSO’s 75th Round survey of “Household Social Consumption of Education in India” conducted from July 2017 to June 2018 provides some very disturbing results. Essentially, this expansion in education has involved increasingly burdening households for the payment, creating a situation in which education beyond the secondary level is essentially unaffordable for most working people, and even school education involves costs for families that can be very high.

Jitha Kuhra migrated from Orissa ten years ago with her family and stays in a rented house in Pattimattam near Perumbavoor in Ernakulam district of Kerala. She passed her higher secondary examination from GHSS Valayanchirangara, Perumbavoor and wants to pursue the Graduation Course in BPharm. Her father, an attendant in San Joe Hospital Perumbavoor is worried about taking care of the family and studies for his children.

Payal Kumari of Kuzhuvelippady in Ernakulam district also migrated to Kerala from Bihar twenty years ago with her family. She is good in education and achieved the first rank in BA History with Archeology and museology from MG University. She too wants to pursue her dreams for higher education and do MA History, from SSV College, Valayanchirangara, MG University. Her father is a salesman in a paint shop in Ernakulam and cannot afford the education of all the children due to limited income sources.

Due to the current pandemic situation and the consequent lockdown, many migrant workers lost their job, and their children discontinued their education in various parts of India. According to the reports, there is a massive spike in child labour in our country these days. These children are also more prone to abuse and health risks and are likely to be out of school, dropping out to supplement household incomes. Due to financial crisis, many children suffer to continue their higher studies.

In this situation, “SUDHAAR -MRC (Migration Research Centre,) has provided educational scholarship under the Caritas India PRAVASIBANDHU -Safe Migration Programme through the Welfare Services Ernakulam to assist the migrant students for their higher studies. The programme was launched during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic to assist, support, and protect internal migrant workers in Kerala.  Both Jitha and Payal received scholarships worth Rs. 10,000/- each to continue their education. This financial support encourages them for their bright future and higher studies.  They have received the scholarship with profound gratitude and gladness and shared that this support is precious and very much helpful for their parents in this lockdown crisis.