VIJAYAWADA: Krishna district Collector Navin Mittal on Friday advised the officials to enrol children from bridge schools to regular schools after completion of their basic education. This would help enrolment of more child workers into bridge schools and the eradication of child labour system itself, he said.

Addressing a workshop on `Putting an end to the child labour system' at the Collector's camp office here, Mr. Mittal said that over 4,000 children had been enrolled into 80 bridge schools in the district, in which 2,935 children sent to regular schools after completion of their basic education. He asked the officials of the Education Department to focus on the attendance of children who joined the regular schools from bridge schools. "Unless the children are brought regular to schools, our efforts to eradicate child labour will not yield any fruits," he said.

Mr. Mittal advised the officials of social welfare residential hostels in the district to give priority to enrolling children from bridge schools. Besides enrolling the children into regular schools, the district administration was also providing them training in self-employment programmes. "The National Labour Institute has recognised the district's achievement in eradication of child labour. The credit for this goes to different Government departments and Non-Government Organisations in the district," he said.

Project Director of the National Child Labour Project K. Siva Sankara Rao, Project Director of the Women and Child Welfare department M.J. Nirmala and other officials were present.

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