The New Year kicked off in Jordan with the launch of the National Framework to Combat Child Labor on the 10^th of January under the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Rania with the organizations involved in implementation of Combating Exploitative Child Labor through Education (CECLE) project, supported by the US Department of Labor (DOL).  The National Council for Family Affairs (NCFA) led a discussion with Questscope, CHF and Jordanian Ministries of Education, Labor and Social Development. The NCFA provides the framework for collaborative efforts to eliminate child labor in Jordan.  In the current project, Questscope enables dropouts to go back to education and prevents students from dropping out.  In a newly funded DOL initiative, Save the Children will provide livelihood alternatives.  

Questscope, in partnership with CHF, implements the CECLE program.  Together we have succeeded with the Ministry of Education in providing educational support for 7,000 children, 2,000 of whom were fully withdrawn from the labor force, and 5,000 were prevented from starting work as children. The success of the CECLE program is used as a model for the National Framework to Combat Child Labor. 

More than 33,000 children in Jordan are working at the expense of an education, resorting to difficult and often dangerous work to help support their families.  Questscope’s non-formal education (NFE) program focuses on personal growth and development, as well as academic achievement, and NFE graduates are enabled to obtain a tenth-grade certificate. This certificate opens the door for these students to register in formal education, enroll in vocational training, or qualify for small business loans – giving them second chances to succeed. 

As an example, Uday dropped out of school when he was 12 to work as a car mechanic. He enrolled in NFE at 16 and will graduate from NFE this year. This 19-year-old student remarked, “The best thing I ever did in my life was to quit work and go back to school. I have hope for my future now. My advice to every child is to stay in school because education, not work, will guarantee your future.”