Sometime this year, the government came out with strict instructions that all children of school-going age should be in school, and not employed in child labour or roaming the streets. It went even further; parents would be held accountable if they failed to send their children to school because the necessary infrastructure was in place. With the free 12-year basic education policy that has been rolled out countrywide, one would have expected parents to gladly jump on the offer, but sadly, that is not the case in some households. There are still pockets of children hanging around markets with the hope of earning some money as porters, but the more annoying ones are the ones who pester shoppers around supermarkets begging for spare change. Today, with the world celebrating International Youth Day, more than half of the population is under 24 years of age. That is a critical mass that has to be prepared to confront the future and many governments are investing heavily in their upbringing. Local authorities should not just stand in the shadows as the future of the nation goes to waste; they should robustly implement the government’s orders to compel parents to take their children to school. Parents using their offspring as an extra source of income should be dealt with severely so that their ignorance does not taint the future of the nation Those children’s place lies in classrooms and not the streets, farm fields or ending in the hands of human traffickers looking for cheap labour.
