Futures under Construction: Workforce Development and Retention for Educating Children of Migrant Construction Workers in India

Planning a comprehensive education curriculum is difficult enough, but how does an educator prepare for class when the children change every day? At Mumbai Mobile Creches (MMC), which sets up day-care centers on construction sites in Mumbai for migrant labourers’ children aged birth to fourteen, educators must grapple with the challenges of frequent turnover of children, multilingual classrooms, multiple age groups, varying levels of abilities and formal schooling, and frequent relocations of centers. MMC has developed a training programmer which equips educators to effectively educate migrant children. Educators, most of them women, are recruited from the migrant construction community or from other marginalized areas, so they are uniquely positioned to understand the needs of the children. The training prepares educators to efficiently deliver a standardized programmer which allows MMC to operate under unstable conditions. It features a curriculum using a thematic approach, rather than one which is strictly age based, and relies heavily on art as a tool to overcome linguistic hurdles. Educators are also trained to meet rigorous health, safety, and hygiene standards to handle any emergencies. To maintain the morale of its educators in the unstable work environment, MMC provides support for continuing education and collaborative learning among professionals. Best practices from MMC’s rigorous pre-service and in-service training programmer which equips its educators to educate migrant children under unstable circumstances and to empower themselves in the process can be adopted by education organizations in diverse vulnerable settings.