The children put up placards, speeches and street plays urging that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), which is India's richest municipality, spare some money towards the cause of education. The NGOs later presented their demands in the form of a memorandum to Chief Minister Manohar Joshi and education minister Sudhir Joshi.

The BMC runs the biggest educational establishment in Mumbai, and the beneficiaries of this system are lower income group children, who stay in chawls, tenements and slums. Many children are first generation learners, whose parents are either semi-literate or illiterate. Thus for these children, the education they receive in the municipal school is crucial, pointed out the memorandum. But the poorinfrastructure in municipal schools, coupled with lacklustre teaching prompts parents to pull their children out of school, said the plea.

The BMC's education policies make matters worse, said parents. ``Where do I get birth certificates for my child from? I never knew that it is important for enrolment'', said a mother, Mohini. The NGOs point out that the policy regarding enrolment of children in BMC schools states that no documents showing proof of age are required to be shown at the time of admission to standard one. All circulars related to enrollment procedures should be circulated to the concerned NGOs, they demanded.

Similarly, BMC's policy of not detaining children came under flak. ``Heedless of their comprehension of the requisite courses, all students are promoted just because they have attended classes. Consequently, even some of the higher class students do not know how to read and write. This itself discourages parents from sending their wards to school'', observed Mugdha and Sindhu,volunteers with Prerana.

The NGOs have also asked that the teacher-student ratio be slashed to 1:40, rather than the existing 1:80 ratio. Also, substitute teachers should be made available when regular teachers go on leave, and attention should be given to extra-curricular activities like music, drawing and sports, they added. The abysmal physical environment of schools was also highlighted: the toilets are in bad shape, with no water facilities or maintenance; the schools lack playgrounds; and library books are hardly distributed.

Bina Sheth Lashkari, founding secretary and director of the mobile Door Step School, added: ``Grants should be made available to NGOs running non-formal education (NFE) programmes. These class timings should be according to the convenience of students concerned. Night schools should be made available to children at the primary level and reading rooms provided in schools whose neigbouring communities do not have electrical connections at their homes''.