Global progress in child labour reduction has stalled since 2016. In South Asia, the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, recurrent extreme weather events and the cost-of-living crisis further threaten to slow or even reverse the progress made. This synthesis report addresses a timely need for new research to help decision-makers and…

Despite rapid economic growth in South Asia, strong inequalities persist and children pay a heavy price. This publication examines latest trends and data on children in the eight countries of the region. It highlights what has been achieved in the 25 years since the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child--and what remains to be done.

Persistently high dropout rates are one of the biggest challenges to fulfilling the right to education in India. This paper attempts to assess the magnitude of the problem of dropout. The paper critically reviews the evidence on some of the commonly cited reasons for dropout, including poverty, limited to access to credit, child labour, and…

This paper analyses the effectiveness of non-formal schools for working children in Jalandhar, Punjab, India, in mainstreaming child labourers into the formal education system through incentivised, informal schooling. Using a family fixed effects model and sibling data as an equivalent population comparison group, I find that the non-formal…

It is estimated that more than 12 million children in India under the age of 14 engage in paid labor at least part time, due mostly to economic reasons. Dominant discourses about childhood however conceptualize childhood labor not only as unethical but as exploitation. This article explored the tensions between Western notions of childhood…

This analytical review aims at exploring trends in educational access and delineating different groups, which are vulnerable to exclusion from educational opportunities at the elementary stage. This review has drawn references from series of analytical papers developed on different themes i.e. regional disparity in education, social equity and…

The new monograph series, IBE Collaborative Projects: Strengthening Capacities through Action, documents projects initiated and managed by local or national level institutions in diverse countries, which have been technically or academically assisted by UNESCO's International Bureau of Education (IBE). This first publication in the series…

Records show that school enrollment for girls is still lagging behind in some areas in the Asia and Pacific region, which poses challenge for the region to achieve Education for All (EFA) by 2015. And girls' labor in the Asia and Pacific region continues to constitute a major obstacle towards gender parity in education, another EFA target. Girls'…