Red Tape Traps Children: A Glimpse at the Plight of Kerala's Migrant Students

The children of thousands of interstate migrants miss out on education due to documentation hurdles.

A migrant family returning from a school in the Ernakulam district after enrolling their children for the academic year.

(Photo: Author)

Satish Kumar, a migrant worker from Uttar Pradesh currently living and working in Kerala, is seeking help from a local civil society organisation to enrol his two young sons, aged six and seven, in a nearby government school.

However, the organisation is facing challenges because Satish doesn't have birth certificates for his boys. Without these certificates, he can't obtain Aadhaar cards, which some schools require for admission as the process is online now. Additionally, as schools stop accepting new students after six days of the academic year being open, the civil society organisation also faces a race against time.

Satish's situation is not unique. Kerala is home to nearly five million interstate migrants, and thousands of their children miss out on education due to documentation hurdles. This is despite the Right to Education Act, which guarantees free and compulsory schooling for children aged six to fourteen, being in effect since 2009.

In Ernakulam itself, the civil society organisation, Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development (CMID), has identified 200 migrant children who are not currently attending school. Unfortunately, the CMID has only been successful in getting admission for 25 of them so far.

Aadhaar and Other Hassles

Talking to The Quint, Benoy Peter, Executive Director of CMID, said, that despite the implementation of the RTE Act, governments fail to guarantee education for migrant children.

According to Benoy, children in Kerala require both Aadhaar cards and birth certificates for school enrolment, which creates challenges for migrant parents who often lack these documents.

“Even if a school accepts a photocopy of the birth certificate, an Aadhaar card is still mandatory to complete the online enrolment process. However, obtaining an Aadhaar card requires the original birth certificate, creating a catch-22 situation. Additionally, the Kerala government's online admission system further complicates the issue by also requiring Aadhaar,” Benoy added.

Unfortunately, the majority of the migrant families don’t possess the Aadhar card or birth certificate of their children in hand. They might not have taken it or they might have left it back home.

According to Benoy, there are other real-ground hassles too.

“To enrol their children in Kerala schools, migrant parents face a difficult choice. Travelling back to their home states to obtain birth certificates or Aadhaar cards would require them to give up work, spend significant money, and navigate bureaucratic hurdles. This is often impractical, causing them to miss the short window for school enrolment in Kerala,” he added.

In Kerala, schools conduct a headcount of children on the sixth day of opening. This headcount determines class sizes, teacher requirements, and funding allocations for benefits like meals, uniforms, and textbooks. Migrant parents who approach schools after this headcount, typically on the seventh day or later, may face difficulties enrolling their children. Since budgets and staffing are already allocated based on the initial headcount, schools might be less willing to accommodate these late enrolments, as it creates an additional burden with limited resources.

Meanwhile, Kerala sociologist Mini Mohan emphasised the security risks faced by children who stay home alone while their parents work.

Mini added that leaving children unattended while parents work, exposes them to various risks. These include forming bad habits and, more concerningly, physical and even sexual abuse.

“Unfortunately, such cases are frequent, with only a small number being reported," she said, adding that many creches opened by the government in 2023 aren’t functioning properly.

Inter-state Migrants in Kerala Are Being Exploited

In July 2023, a migrant girl child was abducted, raped and killed brutally by a migrant in Kerala.

Talking about the security risks, Ayaz Anwar, a researcher with CMID, explained that recent safety regulations have prevented migrant workers from bringing their children to workplaces.

“This lack of childcare options forces them to leave their children unattended at home, a situation that raises security concerns. And this is why we are trying our best to get the children enrolled in the schools,” Anwar added.

Kerala attracts migrant workers from regions like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Assam, creating long-distance labour corridors within India. Experts have identified many ‘pull’ and ‘push’ factors for labour migration into Kerala. Push factors— that force workers out of their home states— include agrarian crises, unemployment, caste-based conflicts, and climate change.

Pull factors— that make Kerala an attractive destination for migrant workers— include the fact that minimum wages in Kerala are the highest in India.

According to a Reserve Bank of India report, in the construction sector, the average daily wage received by male workers in rural India during 2021–22 was ₹373.3, whereas in Kerala, it was ₹837.7. Similarly, in the agriculture sector, the national average of wages received was ₹323.2, whereas in Kerala, it was ₹726.8. In the non-agriculture sector, the national average was ₹326.6, while in Kerala, it was ₹681.8.

Despite having a Left Democratic Front government, inter-state migrants in Kerala are being exploited to the extent that it has started to show signs of modern-day slavery. Unfortunately, the Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979 is not enforced effectively in Kerala, where everyone patronises inter-state migrant workers as guest workers, denying them the rights provided under Articles 21 and 41.

Article 21 guarantees the right to life and personal liberty, and the Supreme Court has interpreted this to mean that the right to life also includes the right to livelihood. Article 41 states that the State shall, within the limits of its economic capacity and development, make effective provision for securing the right to work, education and public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement, and in other cases of undeserved want.

Unfortunately, Kerala is failing to guarantee Articles 21 and 41, honour basic human rights, ensure the welfare of workers, and enforce existing protective laws for inter-state migrant workers.

(Rejimon Kuttappan is an independent journalist, labour migration specialist and author of Undocumented [Penguin 2021]. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)