This research, through analyzing the case of working children in slum
areas near Payatas dumpsite in Barangay Payatas, Metro Manila, aims
at evaluating the role of education as a means to alternative future
professions. Payatas is the largest open dumpsite in the Philippines and
communities live in abject poverty, scavenging useful bits from
discarded material there. A large number of children work in this
hazardous profession, with the result that eventually they lose both
their childhood and an option to be employed in a better paid profession.
Education is widely seen as a remedy for social ills like marginalization
and deprivation of communities but it is worth asking what role
education plays in such an extremely marginalized slum area, and how
the slum children, their families and local education sector workers
perceive the role of education. This research takes the example of
Payatas C elementary school and through interviewing working
children, their family members and teachers, explores the nature and
challenges of education for working children in Payatas. Based on a
qualitative design, this research comes up with the findings that family
income level, educational background and the success of working
children is strongly related and schools in Payatas have not been able to
serve the purpose of uplifting students out of poverty. This implies that
education has so far remained an external factor in the poverty-work
cycle, largely due to the fact that education in Payatas has become a
property of the comparatively richer population, and the government’s
inability to satisfy the needs of those who are in most desperate need of
a better livelihood.