[ti:Indian Centers Prepare School Dropouts for Return to Classroom]
[by:www.21voa.com]
[00:00.00]更多听力请访问21VOA.COM[00:01.96]Millions of children in India drop out of school every year
[00:08.08]although enrollment at schools in the country is rising.
[00:13.16]To help dropout students, voluntary centers
[00:19.32]are training some of these children to return to school.
[00:24.56]At these centers, children learn to read and write
[00:30.76]so they can study what they have missed
[00:34.20]when they were out of school.
[00:36.96]One student, 8-year old Muskan Khatoon,
[00:42.20]is enrolled at a center in a poor neighborhood in New Delhi.
[00:49.44]Before going to the center, she had moved to a village
[00:54.52]after her father had an accident
[00:57.64]which put him out of work in the city.
[01:02.12]She dropped out of the village school
[01:04.84]after struggling with a common problem
[01:08.08]in rural areas: poor teaching.
[01:11.52]"I did not get books, the teacher used to teach for two hours, then go home," she said.
[01:17.16]Because Muskan fell behind,
[01:19.84]she could not get into a regular school
[01:22.84]when she returned to New Delhi.
[01:25.84]There are millions of children in India like her.
[01:30.36]In 2014, nearly 20 percent of children
[01:36.12]did not complete primary education.
[01:41.28]Sakshi is a teaching center
[01:44.24]that gives dropouts the skills they need
[01:47.76]to return to mainstream schools.
[01:52.44]Zuber Khan is Director at Sakshi.
[01:57.36]He says thousands of rural migrants
[02:00.56]are flowing into cities in search of jobs.
[02:05.76]He says they struggle to register their children in schools.
[02:10.88]Khan says that migrant families
[02:13.44]often come in the middle of the school year
[02:16.20]when school registration is closed.
[02:19.92]And they often do not have any proof of identification.
[02:25.28]There are other issues that keep children out of school
[02:29.32]although free primary education in India is now a right.
[02:34.92]Amina Jha teaches at the Sakshi center.
[02:39.88]She says many children stay at home to do housework
[02:44.88]and take care of brothers and sisters as both parents work.
[02:49.12]"Especially girls. There are 19 children in my class
[02:53.12]who do not know the basic alphabet."
[02:55.04]To deal with this problem the centers sometimes
[02:58.56]permit children to come late after doing housework.
[03:03.04]They also provide them with food and books.
[03:07.04]Studies show that many illiterate families
[03:11.65]do not understand the importance of education.
[03:16.72]Motivating parents, then, is important to keeping children in school.
[03:24.28]In the neighborhood in New Delhi,
[03:27.04]many children are registering in regular schools
[03:31.64]after a year of informal education.
[03:35.68]Jha says now parents are more willing to send children to the center.
[03:42.00]"Children who used to play in the lanes now go to government schools.
[03:47.92]They wear uniforms. They know how to write, how to talk.
[03:52.24]That has made parents happy."
[03:54.52]Getting children into school is important for India's future for many reasons.
[04:01.64]The country has the highest population
[04:04.64]of under 15-year-olds in the world.
[04:09.60]I'm Phil Dierking.
[04:11.32]更多听力请访问21VOA.COM