In recognition of the World Day Against Child Labor 2012, the ILO reiterates that the ILO Conventions on child labor on Minimum Age and the Worst Forms of Child Labor are two of the most widely ratified conventions among the ILO member states.
However, there are many
challenges to implementing the measures of these conventions,
particularly to ensure that all children have the right to education.
As
of today, more than 80 percent of the 183 ILO member states have
ratified Convention No. 138 on Minimum Age and Convention No. 182 on the
Worst Forms of Child Labor.
The conventions have been
respectively adopted and integrated into national policy by 163 and 175
countries, including Indonesia, a fact that indicates a clear global
consensus with respect to child labor, and this has been followed by an
increase in the number of formulated national policies in this field.
In
Indonesia, approximately 2.3 million children aged 7 to 14 years and
another estimated 2 million between 15 to 17 years of age are subject to
child labor, working more than 40 hours a week. Many of these
individuals are exposed to hazardous working conditions (UCW, 2012).
Thanks
to the implementation of the nine-year compulsory education and
conditional cash transfer programs in the country, child labor practice
has declined.
However, children between 15 to 17 years of age
seem to have been neglected. For this reason, we need a concerted effort
to ensure that these children stay in school and/or have access to
skills and vocational training.
The difficult part of this
approach is that, according to the government, children between 15 and
17 years old are by law able to work regular jobs up to a maximum of 40
hour per week. Most of these children work for their families as unpaid
labor and in agriculture and the manufacturing sector as informal
employees who are exposed to hazardous conditions.
Furthermore, this segment of the economy is not protected by the labor law or covered by any labor inspection mechanism.
In
general, child labor is a result of poverty. In most cases, children
have no option but to work, and as a result, lack the skills to find
gainful and productive employment. Promoting continued education is the
best way to prevent this problem.
Statistics find that Papua and
East Nusa Tenggara, two provinces with the highest poverty rates, are
among the provinces with the largest gap in educational participation
(48.6 and 49.6 percent respectively). The statistics also show that
almost 9 percent of child laborers aged 7 to 14 years old live in
eastern Indonesia, the highest in Indonesia (CBS, 2012).
To
address the issue, coherent policies combining education and employment
with linkages to social protection programs would help break this
vicious cycle of child labor and deal with the vulnerability of
children.
Having regional disparities of poverty, unemployment
and informality within the country, the “one size fits all” policies
have to be avoided and replaced with regionally sensitive policies.
Another
pressing issue is the high rate of dropouts that seems to be a
“byproduct” of the current education policy of building so many primary
schools without measures for maintaining sustainability.
According
to an Education Ministry report in 2008, there are 144,567 primary
schools compared to only 26,777 secondary schools and 10, 239 senior
high schools in Indonesia.
It is crucial to build more secondary
and high schools to match the current program of building primary
schools and to expand to a 12-year compulsory basic education system as
part of an effort to curb these natural dropouts caused by the absence
of enough secondary school facilities.
This has been the most
challenging issue, particularly under the current decentralized
government system which, despite the fact that 20 percent of the state
budget is allocated for education, has hardly been translated at the
sub-province level, including the most remote rural areas.
To
provide a clearer illustration on this, in one particular district in
Papua, people have demanded building a school with the most basic
services, but without much success for a decade.
Yet, building the education system cannot end by completing physical infrastructure.
Another
tremendously difficult aspect is building the capacity of teachers and
vocational training instructors to design curriculum fit for the needs
of children.
The failure to equip the teachers and instructors
with adequate technical and life skills will adversely affect the
quality of education.
Last, in addition to formal education,
expanding accessibility for older children and youth in rural areas by
providing vocational skills training is required. This has to be done by
revisiting existing employment services and integrating employment
services with vocational training providers, more efficiently matching
labor supply and demand of the labor market and delivering a “hands-on”
skills training fit for the local and global market demand.
This
includes building more mobile training facilities to serve the needs of
older children and the youth for specific skills, including
entrepreneurship skills in remote areas to address the slow growth of
formal jobs.
In line with this effort, more affirmative action
from the vocational training centers to accept dropouts under the age of
24 has to be pursued. Further, internship programs and “tailor-made”
vocational training underscoring specific skills training in response to
the local market needs are required.
Moreover, utilizing the
capacity of the private sector through public-private partnerships
schemes would be a crucial strategy to providing greater employment
opportunities for older children and the youth, including the dropouts.
There
is an urgent need to prepare second chance education now that the
National Planning and Development Agency (BAPPENAS) has said that by
2025, the number of young people with minimum education of primary
school will be cut to 48 million.
Building a mechanism to ensure
access for second chance education is a key to addressing the issues of
child labor as well as youth employment. Providing all dropouts a chance
to catch up on their delayed school attainment and facilitating better
access to educational and vocational skills training can increase their
employability and access to the future globalized labor market.
The writers respectively are national project officer of the Child Labor and Education Program and program officer with the International Labor Organization (ILO)-Jakarta Office. The opinions expressed are their own.