Children Drop out of School to Work

As Kristina Dolgikh reports, the children often have to leave school to earn money for their families, for whom they may be the only breadwinners. In any case, their families may have moved from another part of Kyrgyzstan, so they do not have residence rights and their children are not be eligible to attend a local school.



Once children are out of education, it becomes increasingly difficult to get them back into it.



To address this problem, special centres have been set up at the Dordoi and Osh bazaars to cater – literally – for the children doing casual work there. As well as providing basic classes run by volunteers, the centres give them a hot meal. The aim is to encourage them to start attending school full time.



Social workers admit this will be an uphill struggle since many of these children are effectively playing the role of working adults in their families.