Introduction - Social Policy and Development Assignment
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The report will throw a light on the social policy issues which are based in India. The social policy and development aim to ensure the individuals and communities are enabled to participate in the contribution of the national development while enjoying fundamental freedom & human rights. There is a relationship between social policy and development. It has been identified that the social policy provides a social purpose for the development of the economy of a country. The social policy provides a framework for the development of the activities in society. Social policy is important in the country because it will help them and ensures that everyone in the society lives in peace and harmony away from conflicts.
In this report, a detailed description will be given of the social policy of India. Further, the social policy issues and challenges will be identified. A detailed description of the national policy will be identified that has been initiated by the government of India. In this report, a detailed description of the policy implications will be identified while giving suggestions for eliminating child labor in India.
About Social policy in India
Social Policy aims to improve the human welfare to meet the needs of humans such as health, economic security, housing, and education. With the help of social policy, it will ensure the welfare of individuals through the governmental regulations. As the social policy is affected by the social developments and it changes according to the needs of the individuals (Thorat and Verma, 2017). To make the changes in the social policy, it is important to know about the condition of the country. The improvement of the social policy and development is necessary because it helps to understand the problems and issues of the society which affect the individuals in the world. The Social policy issues include welfare poverty reduction, child labor, education policy, social exclusion, social care, family policy, and so on.
Overview and analysis of key issues and challenges
The main social policy issue related to India that has been selected is Child Labor. Child labor refers to the work which is physically, emotionally, and mentally harmful for the children. It has been identified that child labor is the consequence and the cause of poverty. It has been identified that over the past year India has reduced the number of the children who are involved in child labor. Child labor is the major social policy issue in the country of India. It has been identified by the researcher that there are around 152 million children are working as child laborers out of which India is approx. 7.3 percent in the numbers (Aiyar and Kapur, 2019). It has been analyzed that Uttar Pradesh is the state which has the highest rate of child labor. As per the census of 2011, the working children in India are 10.1 million between the ages of 5-14. There are many issues and challenges of this that have an impact on society as well as on the children of the same group who are working as child labor in India. These are as follows:
The issue that has been facing by the children is that child labor has the impact on the children in terms of gaining the education & skills they need to have the opportunities of the work according to their interests at this age.
The social policy issues related to child labor that has been facing by the country India are Lack of good schools, growth of informal economy, and poverty are considered as the social issues (Momen 2020).
The other challenge of the social issues related to the child labor is that it has been having the mental harm and even death because some of the children are working as child labor on forcing by someone.
Child labor forces the children to cut off from schooling and their health while restricting their fundamental rights and threatening their future.
The other causes that have been identified from the child labor include the addiction, diseases or disability, social & economic backwardness.
It has been identified that the increasing gap between the poor and rich people, neo liberal economic policies, and privatization of the basic services are causes to the major population out of employment.
The main causes for the child labor that has been found out by the government studies, policy statements, and also as per the economic and social scholars, are as follows:
Economic uncertainties
Lack of education
Poverty (Cho et al, 2019)
Weak social awareness
The weak policy of legal framework
Employment and so on.
The major problem that has been found out from the social policy issues and challenges is child labor. The problem of these social issues is that in India 10.01 million populations are in the line of child labor which has been causing the poverty, unemployment rate, education, and so on. The responsibility to address the problem of child labor is by the government by which they have been introducing many schemes for removing the child labor from India. To address the problem of child labor, the government needs to finds out the records of the data and compares them with the current data. It has been analyzed that if the government compares the current data with the past data then it will help them to know about the current position of India and helps them to give the new ideas to more remove the child labor from India.
The problem has already been addressing by the government of India while initiating the National Child Labor Project Scheme (Greer et al, 2021). It has been identified that with the help of this scheme the government of India has been trying to give them opportunities to the people for their educations so that they can earn while eliminating the working at the childhood. With the help of NGOs, the government has been initiating to educate the children's while improving their mental and physical health. It is important to improve their mental and physical health because it helps them to focus more on their education.
Government initiatives in India for the child labor policy
It has been identified that the government has been recognizing the outcome of child labor which has multiple causes and dimensions. For this, the government of India has been enacted legislation and prepared the national policy for removing child labor from India. It has been identified that the national policy scheme has an important pillar of the national policy on the elimination of child labor which are as follows:
Legislative action plan: Under this plan, it has been identified that effective & strict enforcement of legal provisions relating to child labor will be identified under many laws.
Project-based plan for action: With the help of several projects, the government of India has been implementing the National Child Labor project Scheme in the areas where there is a high concentration of child labor (Menon and van der Meulen Rodgers, 2018).
The conjunction of government developmental programmers: With the help of this program, the government of India has been focusing on the developmental initiatives to eradicate the poverty while providing the access to the social security, economic & social empowerment, health & education of the child worker with their families.
For removing the child labor in India, the government of India has initiated the National Child Labor Project Scheme in 1988 to recover working children in the country. The national child labor project scheme is the major central sector scheme for the recovering of child labor. It has been identified that at this time also the survey has been conducted of the child labor engaged in the hazardous occupations with which the processes have also been conducted. It has been identified that the National policy scheme adopted by the government has been implemented through a registered society under the chairmanship of the administrative head of the district (Jhansirani 2018). At present, it has been identified that 6000 special schools are in operation under the national child labor project scheme. In this scheme, more than 10 lakhs of children have been mainstreamed into the formal education system. At this time, the steps are to be taken by the government for the setting of the new National Child Labor Projects. The steps are as follows:
At the initial stage, the survey will be taken by the district administration with the help of the education department and labor regarding the number of children who are involving in hazardous and non-hazardous occupations.
All the necessary details will be filled in on the survey.
The number of the locations in which the children are working will be mentioned.
Justification will be given on the setting up of the National Child Labor project
The proposition will be forwarded by the district counselor.
Recommendations will be accepted by the state government to the government of India.
The name of the NGOs will be allocated to the specific schools (Ramos 2018).
The training program will be given for the selected NGOs
The children will be admitted to the special schools and the constitution of the state levels in India will be monitoring the NGOs with the help of the state government.
Recommendations
There are many suggestions that should be used by the government of the country. These are as follows:
At the very first stage, the health care workers predominantly the community health nurses in relationship with the other investors could introduce and generate connections amongst the schemes and community people to strengthen the capacity of the families to generate income rather than choosing the child labor.
The conferences and seminars should be held for the staff, parents of all the children's who are involved in the child labor. It has been identified that if this will be not possible to remove the child labor then the government must facilitate the needs of the poor people while providing the new ways to educate the children's and young people who are working other than the traditional schools (Coll and Magnuson, 2019).
The government should ensure that in India every girl and boy has an opportunity to develop mentally and physically to his or her full potential. The purpose of this is to stop the works by children that expose their development and education.
The government should initiate the schemes for educating the poor people so that the parents will not send their children for the work. While doing the work below the age of 14 years, it has been having the negative impact on the environment and it also affects the mental and physical health of the people. They should do to introduce the scheme through which the people who are below the poverty line get the education.
In India the educational system is very good but also the people in India face many difficulties of the low literacy rates due to the low enrollment in schools (Tillin and Duckett, 2017).
With the help of NGOs, the government of India can spread the awareness of child labor which will enable them to provide the opportunity to create the educational resources, income resources, and so on with which they can eradicate the child labor from the country.
Policy implications
There are many policy implications that have a positive or the negative impact on the government of India of the child labor. These are as follows:
It has been identified that working children have the risk of dropping out from the school. This is the negative impact on the policy (Ibrahim et al, 2019).
The negative effects of the policy implications include that it will have the difficult of the tasks and harsh working conditions which will create the number of problems such as malnutrition, drug dependency, depression, and so on.
The positive implication of the national child labor project scheme is that it will make aware many parents about the harmful effects of the child labor and can stop them to do the working in the childhood.
Conclusion
It has been concluded that child labor has major issues in India that has an impact on the country. It has been analyzed that social policy aims to improve the mental and physical health of the children's while providing them the opportunity for education. National Child Labor Project Scheme has been analyzed that has been initiated by the government in India. It has also been analyzed that with the help of this scheme they are providing the resources to the population of the country to eradicate child labor from India. It has been analyzed that child labor forces the children to cut off from schooling and their health while restricting from their fundamental rights and threatening their future. From the above report it has been analyzed that the main cause for the child labor that has been found out by the government studies, policy statements, and also as per the economic and social scholars, these are as follows economic uncertainties, Lack of education, Poverty, weak social awareness, the weak policy of legal framework, employment and so on. The three pillars of the National Child labor project scheme have been identified which include the conjunction of government developmental programmers, project-based plan for action, and Legislative action plan.
References
Aiyar, Y. and Kapur, A., 2019. The centralization vs decentralization tug of war and the emerging narrative of fiscal federalism for social policy in India. Regional & Federal Studies, 29(2), pp.187-217.
Cho, S.H., Fang, X., Tayur, S. and Xu, Y., 2019. Combating child labor: Incentives and information disclosure in global supply chains. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 21(3), pp.692-711.
Coll, C.G. and Magnuson, K., 2019. Theory and research with children of color: Implications for social policy. In Children of Color (pp. 219-255). Routledge.
Greer, S.L., Jarman, H., Falkenbach, M., Massard da Fonseca, E., Raj, M. and King, E.J., 2021. Social policy as an integral component of pandemic response: Learning from COVID-19 in Brazil, Germany, India and the United States. Global Public Health, pp.1-14.
Ibrahim, A., Abdalla, S.M., Jafer, M., Abdelgadir, J. and De Vries, N., 2019. Child labor and health: a systematic literature review of the impacts of child labor on child’s health in low-and middle-income countries. Journal of Public Health, 41(1), pp.18-26.
Jhansirani, P., 2018. Health related issues among the child labor. International Journal of Chemical & Material Sciences (IJCMS), 1(1), pp.33-40.
Menon, N. and van der Meulen Rodgers, Y., 2018. Child labor and the minimum wage: Evidence from India. Journal of Comparative Economics, 46(2), pp.480-494.
Momen, M.N., 2020. Child Labor: History, Process, and Consequences.
Ramos, A.K., 2018. Child labor in global tobacco production: a human rights approach to an enduring dilemma. Health and human rights, 20(2), p.235.
Thorat, S. and Verma, S., 2017. Social science research in India: Status, issues, and policies. Oxford University Press.
Tillin, L. and Duckett, J., 2017. The politics of social policy: welfare expansion in Brazil, China, India and South Africa in comparative perspective. Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 55(3), pp.253-277.
