Hyderabad’s work-site schools bring education and safety to children of migrant workers
On a windy Friday afternoon, 37 children sat in a modest classroom inside a labour camp in Narsingi, their tiny slate boards covered with English
On a windy Friday afternoon, 37 children sat in a modest classroom inside a labour camp in Narsingi, their tiny slate boards covered with English alphabet scribbled with chalk. One by one, they eagerly raised their hands to read out the words they had just learnt, while, a few metres away, the rhythmic sounds of construction work continued as their parents worked on the high-rise towers reshaping Hyderabad’s skyline. For these children, all below the age of 10, school is no longer something left behind when their families move from one construction site to another. Instead, the classroom has come to them. Launched in May, the work-site school at the Rajapushpa labour camp is a collaboration between the Cyberabad police, Telangana Education Department, Municipal Administration and the developer, currently has 53 enrolled students from Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, and Assam. Two more schools, at construction sites run by Navanaami and BSR Developers in Narsingi, are ready for inauguration, with the Commissionerate aiming to eventually expand the model to around 100 labour camps across Cyberabad.
Inside the classroom, the children spend nine hours each day (from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.) learning English, Mathematics and Hindi, alongside playtime, soft skills and supervised breaks. During lunch, the children sat in a circle on the floor, enjoying meal served on disposable plates. Outside, towering residential blocks rise as high as 45 floors. Inside the labour camp, however, families live in rows of temporary blue shelters, often moving every few months in search of work. That constant movement disrupts children’s education, leaving many out of school altogether. The classroom also addresses another pressing concern: the safety of children left unattended in labour camps. Earlier this year, a mason was arrested for rape and murder of a four-year-old girl at the BSR labour colony in Puppalaguda while her parents were at the construction site. Her body was found in bushes near a construction site. In separate cases this year, courts sentenced two men to life imprisonment and another labourer to 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting minor girls while their parents were away at work.
Several other cases of violence, including drunken brawls, have also been reported from labour camps across Hyderabad, increasing safety risk for children. “These workers come to Hyderabad with dreams of earning a better livelihood for their families. It is our responsibility to ensure that while they are here, their children are safe and have access to education,” said Cyberabad Police Commissioner M. Ramesh. For Shabnam, the school’s teacher, the past two months have been fulfilling. “Every morning, after their parents left for work, I would see children wandering aimlessly around the camp. I started teaching a few of them informally because I wanted them to learn something. When this school opened, I finally had the opportunity to teach all of them together,” she said. The job has also given her financial independence. Originally from Bihar, the Bachelor of Arts graduate, she earns ₹22,000 a month, paid by the developer while her son also attends the same classroom.
The BriefWire