Moving on with Education: The Mobile Learning Centre Inititative

India’s National Policy for Children 2013 reaffirms that every child is unique and a supremely important national asset. This national asset, however, would depreciate without regular maintenance and upkeep. For the protection of this asset, the State stands committed to ‘safeguard, inform, include, support and empower all children’. While India has taken large strides, there still remain pockets where this national commitment has yet to be redeemed. A large percentage of this untouched group comprise children in difficult circumstances including street children, children with disabilities, children from marginalized and disadvantaged communities, and child victims.

Save the Children is part of the Indian commitment to reach out to every child and Mobile Learning Center (MLC) project is a stride towards that direction. The MLC takes education and child protection to the doorstep of such children through what is popularly known as the Blue Bus. The paradigm shifts from a school waiting for children to a school reaching the child. Suddenly a boy generally found loitering in a slum colony or a little girl cloistered at home with household chores are seen with books and a teacher at the MLC. With this comes hope, knowledge, friends and dreams.

This report presents an overview of the performance of the Mobile Learning Centre initiative, as well as some heartening stories from the field.