6.3.2 Background : Most of the villages are now provided with State Govt. Primary Schools. Many of them are single teacher schools. The teachers are required to reside in the villages of their duty. But most of them do not. They reside in nearby towns for their own convenience and comfort and commute daily to the place of duty. Under the circumstances of such a situation, they rarely attend to their duties regularly and properly and very often even indulge in unauthorized absence for days together without being noticed. Even where the teachers attend to their duties, they lack the commitment required of their profession in the context of a rural situation. As a result children of parents who cannot afford to send their children to better equipped and better managed private educational institutions, are subjected to gross neglect and their future careers become jeopardized. Consequently there is increasing drop out rates at the primary level and those few who survive are not destined to go much far in the educational ladder because of their poor standard of attainment at the primary level. Dalit Children, what with their poverty, and the illiteracy and ignorance of their parents are the major casualties in this situation. Bala Bata Programme is conceived against this background situation.
6.3.3 ACTIVITIES:
1. Bala Bata schools are opened for Dalit Children in the age group of 5 to 10 years.
2. They supplement and reinforce the education at the regular schools and are not a substitution for them.
3. The Children attend Bala Bata Schools during their off time of the regular schools and on holidays.
4. They supplement the curriculum of the regular schools with the innovated curriculum design.
5. They use the Dalit Folk arts and culture and the play way methods to kindle and sustain the interest of the children in the education.
6. They ensure that the children who are lagging behind in the school make up for these deficiencies and come up to the required standard.
7. They encourage the children and their parents to take up Kitchen gardening at their homes to supplement their incomes.
8. They promote habits of “Clean and Green” among children.
9. CARDS supports Income generating programmes undertaken by the parents of Bala Bata Children with micro–credit to serve as a compensation for the loss of labour wages hitherto earned through Child Labour.
10. The Programme lays the path for a new generation of educated Dalits.