TIE WITH ILO/IPEC SUPPORT SENSITIZES TEACHERS AND COMMUNITIES TO STOP CHILD LABOUR AND ENROL CHILDREN TO SCHOOL

Introduction

International Labour Organization (ILO) global report of 2006 states that there are 218 million children aged 5 to 17 years engaged in child labour world wide. Out of these 191 million are aged between 5 and 14 years and 126 million children are working in hazardous conditions. In Tanzania the 2006 integrated Labour Force Survey (ILFS) found that 20.7% of Tanzania 's estimated 12,083.349 children aged 5-17 years are in child labour.

In Tanzania , child labour is mostly prevalent in the informal sector. The Government of Tanzania has ratified the ILO/IPEC convention No.182 in 2001 and made a commitment to work with stakeholders and social partners to eliminate the WFCL by 2010 through the Time Bound Programme (TBP). The first phase of the 10 year programme was implemented from 2001-2005, addressing the WFCL in commercial agriculture, commercial sex, and domestic work and in the mining sectors in 11 pilot districts. These were identified by the stakeholders as the areas mostly associated with high incidences of WFCL. The fishing sector has been added up in TBP Phase II as another area of WFCL after being identified during the evaluation of Phase I for being one of the sectors where child labour was highly being practiced. Five fishing area districts have been included in the pilot districts for Phase II in addition to those in Phase I.

What is child labour:

Child labour is any work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to their physical and mental development. It refers to work that:

• Is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children.
• Interferes with their schooling, and thus deprives them their basic right to education.

According to the United Nations Child Rights Convention (CRC), a child is any person under 18 years of age.

The exploitation of children in child labour is a violation of their rights, especially their rights to education, health, protection and development. Children are deprived of a promising future because of the damage to their development from early and inappropriate work and the deprivation of education. Some children suffer physical, sexual and emotional abuse in the working environment whereby such a situation can affect them for life. Injury, illness and death also occurs as a direct result of children's involvement in exploitative working conditions.

Education Training Policy (1995) and the subsequent policies such as Education Sector Development Programme (ESDP) and Primary Education Development Programme (PEDP) have shown a direction towards the elimination of child labour as they address access, equity, performance, attainment and the whole issue of provision of quality primary and pre-primary education. The policy documents categorically state that categorically that enrolment and attendance in seven years of primary education is compulsory for children aged 7-13 years. Unfortunately that is the common age at which children begin to fall victims of WFCL.

Role of TIE in Elimination of Child Labour

As child labour is one of the challenges in the implementation of Tanzania primary school curriculum today with regards to the attainment of the Millennium Goals specifically Education for All (EFA).

Tanzania Institute of Education is an arm if the Ministry of Education responsible for Curriculum development. Among her roles are designing and developing curricula and curriculum materials and orientation and retraining of teachers on different curriculum related matters.

TIE-Project Overview

TIE, in partnership with and support from ILO/IPEC, has developed a project which aims at providing an orientation to teachers and education management teams at ward and district levels on child labour and its effect to children and their lives. These teachers are expected to, in return, sensitize parents/guardians, community members and children for timely enrollment of school aged children, and their constant attendance in school. The project is being implemented in three of the TBP pilot districts in the fishing sector in this year 2007-2008. These districts are Lindi, Kilwa and Mufindi.

Project progress; what has been done so far:

In the first phase since October 2007, TIE has accomplished the following:

• Developed Teachers' Training Manuals on Child labour.
• Developed a Handout for teachers on learner friendly teaching and learning techniques through art and the media. The handout will be used to enhance awareness of child labour issues among the schools teachers' administrators and the communities as a whole for promotion of enrolment and attendance of children at risk of falling into WFCL.
• Prepared logistic for teachers orientations in Lindi ,Kilwa and Mufindi districts.

What is yet to be done :

In the 2 nd phase, i.e. May to July 2008, TIE intends to organize orientation and awareness seminars for head teachers, Ward Education coordinators, District Education Officers, District Child labour Coordinators and School Inspectors of districts mentioned above.