Combating Child Labour through Education in Kyrgyzstan: Capacity building and educational opportunities for school drop-outs Kyrgyzstan is among the countries in Central Asia seriously affected by the Worst Forms of Child Labour (WFCL). Children work in almost all sectors of industry, as well as in cotton, tobacco, and rice plantations and in the provision of various services (car washing, shoes cleaning, transportation of carriages in the markets, etc). The ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child labour (ILO-IPEC) has been working in Kyrgyzstan since 2005 to provide technical and financial assistance to the ILO constituents in the implementation of the ILO child labour conventions: Minimum Age Convention (1973) No.138 and the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999) No.182, as well as in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of national strategies, policies and programmes addressing child labour. This current project is designed to operate over a one-year period and will build on the outcomes and achievements of the previous interventions, lessons learned and on the experiences acquired in the region in working with the Government, social partners and other stakeholders in addressing child labour. It is closely linked and designed to complement the ongoing project “Combating Child Labour in Central Asia – Commitment becomes Action (PROACT CAR Phase III)” in addressing child labour through education through a combination of upstream policy-related interventions (mainstreaming the issue of child labour into the national policy development frameworks, enhancing the capacity of the key stakeholders to address child labour issue) with downstream service-oriented activities at the community level (direct interventions for the prevention of children at risk of entering WFCL and withdrawal of the children involved in WFCL through provision of formal and non-formal education, vocational training, life skills, recreational activities and promoting safe work for children above the legal minimum age). 2. Project Strategy In order to support the implementation of the ILO Global Action Plan that sets the internationally agreed goal of eliminating the worst forms of child labour by 2016, the One UN Programme 2010-2011 in Kyrgyzstan, the Strategy of the Global Partnership for Education for 2011- 2014, the Global Initiative on Out-of-School Children, and the priorities identified in two Government education development strategies: Strategic Programme of Education System Development (2008-2011) and Education Development Strategy 2012-2020 (draft) that call for provision of access to school preparation programmes and equal opportunities to each child to prepare for schooling, the project will create an enabling environment to effectively prevent and eliminate the worst forms of child labour through education by: a/ supporting the development of a curriculum for a non-formal/transitional education programme (catch-up classes) for children with breaks in schooling or who dropped out from secondary education with a view to further mainstream children into formal education, b/ building the capacity of the education specialists to deliver the non-formal/transitional education programme in Kyrgyzstan and of the key stakeholders to mainstream child labour into education sector plans in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, c/ raising the awareness of the general public on child labour and the importance of education, including the Child Labour Monitoring System d/ knowledge sharing, collection and dissemination of the lessons learned and good practices ILO-IPEC Kyrgyzstan will conclude a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Education and Science and the Kyrgyz Academy of Education to formally support the implementation of the project, including further implementation of the curriculum for the non-formal/transitional education programme. a/ Support the development of a curriculum for a non-formal/transitional education programme (catch-up classes) for children with breaks in schooling or who dropped out from second