Sri Lanka - Institut de statistique de l'Unesco

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Out-of-School Children in Sri Lanka: Country Study Poor health and nutritional status Free healthcare services have been available throughout the country from a network of institutions for around seven decades and have contributed substantially to improved health in all segments of the population. Nevertheless, the ill health of students negatively impacts their school attendance as well as their learning capacity and performance, which can lead to dropout. School health policies and programmes are aimed at addressing this issue. The School Adolescent Health Unit of the Family Health Bureau of the Ministry of Health Care and Nutrition implements specific policies in collaboration with the MOE. The oldest school-centred policy has been to conduct regular School Medical Inspections in Grades 1, 4, 7 and 10, and in all grades in schools where there are less than 200 children. Local Medical Officers of Health report medical issues and refer children to clinics where necessary, and Public Health Inspectors identify problems in schools regarding water and sanitation facilities and report to principals for action. However, as the result of a shortage of personnel, equipment or drugs, these inspections do not appear to have been conducted regularly or in all schools, so their impact is limited (pers. comm., Family Health Bureau, Ministry of Health Care and Nutrition, 2010). The Public Health Inspector’s role in ensuring safe water and clean sanitation does not appear to have been given adequate recognition in all schools, nor is there any certainty that action is taken by school authorities, particularly in regard to the provision and maintenance of water and sanitation facilities. A School Health Promotion Policy and Programme 2008–12 has been introduced recently (Ministry of Health Care and Nutrition, 2008) and a School Canteen Policy has been implemented since 2006 jointly by the Ministry of Health Care and Nutrition and the MOE. In view of the concern regarding under-nutrition and malnutrition, a school feeding/school meals programme has been organized in schools in economically disadvantaged locations and communities, and is reported to have reached 80 percent of all primary schools within the programme area (World Bank, 2011a). In secondary grades, a five-year project is being implemented to provide iron foliate for six months to adolescents in Grades 7–10. Child under-nutrition or malnutrition, however, continues to be an issue of concern. These policies seem to be well directed at the children in Dimensions 4 and 5 who might by irregular in their school attendance as a result of ill health. Undoubtedly, more effective implementation of policies, especially those on inspection, would improve the situation further. As malnutrition is a particular concern, well-designed and targeted social protection policies could also help to link good nutrition with regular schooling. Child labour Child labour which is largely a family strategy to cope with poverty is both a cause of dropping out and a sequel to dropping out. It deprives children of their right to an education that facilitates exit from poverty and exposes them to various forms of exploitation. Its elimination is therefore an educational objective and a social protection issue. Child labour is reported to have declined to around 2.5 percent in 2008/09, following the strengthening of labour legislation and the spread of education and compulsory education regulations since 1998 (DCS, 2011c). Major policy measures related to reduction of the incidence of child labour include the ratification in 1999 of ILO Convention 138 on the Minimum Age of Employment (below 14 years in Sri Lanka) and ILO Convention 182 on the Prohibition of the Worst Forms of Child Labour, and relevant amendments in 2003 and 2006 of the Employment of Women, Young Persons and Children Act 1956. 56
Out-of-School Children in Sri Lanka: Country Study However, discrepancy between the prohibition of child labour below 14 years and regulations making education compulsory to 14 years creates difficulties for the enforcement of compulsory education in the 14-year-old age cohort and precipitates dropping out before the age of 14 years. This situation will be exacerbated when compulsory education is extended to 16 years, as proposed in current education policy documents. In 2009 and 2010, the Ministry of Labour with ILO support initiated a Decent Work Policy and a Road Map to Eliminate the Worst Forms of Child Labour. Labour Officers of the Department of Labour, who function at the local level, work with Probation and Child Care Officers to identify and rehabilitate child labourers, and the police are expected to take those who violate labour legislation to court. However, the interface of the demand for and supply of child labour continues to leave children exposed to harsh labour concentrated largely in the low-skill, low-income informal sector of the economy, and to denial of the education from a young age that could assist them to exit poverty. Micro-level studies have highlighted the travails of children engaged in exploitative and often in hazardous employment such as domestic service (Jayasena, 2005; Kannangara et al., 2003; Marga Institute, 2004), manufacturing industries in the informal sector (Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2005), domestic agriculture, plantation labour, fishing (Marga Institute, 2004), casual manual labour, child beggars (Gunawardena et al., 2005), commercial child sex workers (Jayaweera, 2005; Ratnapala, 1999; Seneviratne, 2006) and trafficked children (Squire and Wijeratne, 2008). Child labour is also tackled through child rights policy and legislation. A positive policy outcome was the establishment of the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) by Act No. 50 of 1998 to formulate national policies on the prevention of child abuse including child labour, the protection and treatment of child victims of such abuse under 18 years, and for coordinating and monitoring actions against all forms of child abuse. It is interesting to note the wide scope of the functions of the authority, as the act defined child abuse as contraventions of (i) relevant sections of the Penal Code, (ii) the Employment of Women, Young Persons and Children Act, (iii) the Children and Young Persons Ordinance, and (iv) regulations relating to compulsory education under the Education Ordinance, as well as the involvement of children in armed conflict. Non-schooling is clearly recognized as a violation of the rights of a child; this includes non-schooling as a result of child labour. Child labourers are usually older children and most frequently fall into Dimensions 3 and 5. Policies on NFE that encourage children back into the formal school system to complete their education are especially useful for children in Dimension 3. As child labour is closely linked to family poverty, policies that address poverty in general and particularly the opportunity costs associated with education also help to reduce child labour and keep children in school (Dimension 5). As noted above, there is a good opportunity to link social protection policies aimed at reducing child labour with policies on education. Migration of mothers There are currently no policies targeting the educational vulnerabilities of children whose mothers have migrated for labour purposes. This is an obvious policy gap, and again could be addressed through linking policies on social protection to the education of children with migrant mothers, benefiting children mostly in Dimensions 3, who have fallen out of school because of family dysfunction. Although special assistance is provided for children of female migrant domestic workers who have qualified for the Grade 5 scholarship, children of other women female workers are vulnerable to 57
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Ministry of Education
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© United Nations Children’s Fund
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Message of the Hon. Deputy Minister
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Message of the Secretary to the Min
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Message of the Director of Educatio
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Acknowledgements CENWOR would like
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Acronyms 5DE Five Dimensions of Exc
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● ● Children in Dimension 4 are
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Framework of Actions on Education a
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● ● ● It is critical to devel
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Out-of-School Children in Sri Lanka
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Sri Lanka - Institut de statistique de l'Unesco

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