“Education for All: A Study Poverty and Education in the Urban Slums of Siliguri Municipal Corporation & Raiganj Municipality of West Bengal in India”
Abstract
Dr. Arup Pramanik*
______
Urbanization accompanied by unsustainable population growth due to large scale migration leads to mushrooming of slum settlement particularly in the cities of the developing world i.e., one in every seven human beings is a slum dweller and for every three urban persons, one is a slum dweller. Around 8.5 million of slum dwellers are adding every year in the developing region.Almost all the slums are a breeding ground for poverty, exploitation, negligence, destitution and disease. Yet despite the contrasts in terms of context, there is one factor that remains unchanged: people themselves. Wherever people live, they retain essentially the same human needs, and the desire for the same entitlements or rights. They require food, shelter, clothing, access to medical facilities, the ability to educate children, and the ability to participate socially, politically, intellectually in the society of which they are a part. The formation of slums in the cities of the developing countries like Siliguri Municipal Corporation Area (SMCA) in Darjeeling district and Raiganj Municipality in Uttar Dinajpur District of West Bengal is closely linked with rural-urban migration from neighbouring districts, states and countries. Unpredictable growth of informal settlements due to urbanisation has now become a serious challenge to the ULBs and policy makers for the development of the city. The rapid urban population growth and lack of attention to urban poverty has exacerbated multi-dimensional deprivation particularly in education among the urban poor. Education for all is a Constitutional right, but the education picture of India clearly indicates that the educational opportunities and attainment for the urban slum dwellers are significantly lower than that of the affluent section of the society. Education is a pre-requisite for attaining sustainable development. It is also true that poverty or low earnings of the slum dwellers adversely affect the quality and quantity of education not only at the macro level but also at the household level. If this scenario is allowed to continue, the agenda of eradicating illiteracy (EFA) by the UNESCO shall be severely thwarted. If the mid-term appraisal of 2015 regarding MDGs is any indication, illiteracy is still a burning issue which need to be tackled in the light of circumstances of unsustainable urbanisation prevailing in the cities of developing countries. The status of Private and Public Schooling also is matter of prime importance given the manner in which the State governs the entire system so as to meet the EFA Agenda. Thus, there is the need to ensure access to education and health services and distribution them well; to facilitate fuller use of the human capital of the poor and to empower them with land and equity capital, training and job opportunities made possible by opening to trade, investment and ideas. Therefore, the paper will try toseek an overview of thesocio-economic condition and deprivation in education among the migrant slum dwellers in SMCA and Raiganj Municipality. The study reveals that the slum dwellers in both the study areas are struggling extremely with poverty to cope with the city life including high educational deprivation. Exclusion, deprivation and lack of access to basic education, in particular is caused not merely by economic factors, but also related to non-economic factors, policy issues and the quality of enforcement prevalent in the system .
______
*Assistant Prof.in Economics,Siliguri College of Commerce, University of North Bengal
The paper is an on-going UGC Minor Research Project titled “Migration, Livelihood and Development: A Socio-economic Study of the Migrant Slum Population in Siliguri Municipal Corporation Area (SMCA) and Raiganj Municipality”