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3) Reducing child labor will also require making parents aware to recognize the future returns to schooling. This may require some kind of household level transfers in order to lead to voluntary elimination of child labor {as per ILO (2003) Child Labor Report}.

4) Another way of attracting children (involved in child labor) is to provide facilities like night schooling / national open-schooling system. This will provide them with flexibility to pursue education without compromising on their work also. Though its effectiveness in reducing the incidence of child labor is questionable, it may, however, serve to improve the welfare of the children. It can also attract them and their families to the benefits of education, which may lead to reduction of child labor (in the future).

5) Policy makers need to take steps to reduce the cost of education for the poor as it is also a deterrent to sending children to school. However, cost should not lead to a compromise with quality, as poor quality can also lead to poor school attendance.

6) In addition to the Mid-Day Meal Program, the government can go one more step ahead by giving monetary incentives to students who come regularly to the school or register a certain minimum level of attendance. As we saw in the discussion, it's the monetary constraints that force parents to send their children for child labor. Hence, this can go a long way in future policy implementations with regards to child labor.

Family & Household

Another major factor in reducing child labor can be the parental attitude towards children, as has been shown in sections above. Thus, following policy measures can be considered to tackle this aspect of the problem: -

1) Policy measures aimed at changing parents' attitudes toward their children should be adopted by policy makers. Awareness about the benefits of children's education in the long run vis-à-vis the harmful effects of child labor may make parents inclined to send their children to school and not for work.

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Dr. Shreyas Goswami and Vineet Jain are the First Year MBA (BM) Students at XLRI, Jamshedpur. While Shreyas is a Doctor by profession, Vineet is a Civil Engineer from Delhi College of Engineering, Delhi University.