The central government of India has made notable strides in recognizing and attending to the educational needs of marginalized children. Policymakers have invested significant effort and capital to change legal frameworks and to establish Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), the national Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD)’s flagship program to achieve Universalization of Elementary Education (UEE). Bihar Education Project Council (BEPC), the state-supported agency designated to implement SSA in Bihar, has taken great pains to target Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Muslim minority communities, and girls. However, these institutions and the current educational system in rural Bihar fail to address the additional dimension of distress migration. Also called seasonal migration, this particular form of migration has historical roots in the largely agricultural economy; generations of poor families leave their home villages to find employment opportunities during the lean season between harvests. Accompanying their parents, migrant children leave their rural communities and move to larger towns within Bihar (intra-state migration) or migrate to other states (inter-state migration) for weeks or months. Migrant children often eventually drop out of school at an early age – before they achieve basic literacy and numeracy – and are forced into low-wage labor in construction, domestic work, and agriculture.
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