Access to scholarships is often framed as a technical challenge: families simply need awareness, better outreach, or help completing paperwork. But for migrant construction workers’ children, the real issue is a deep failure of social entitlements. Though the Karnataka Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board (KBOCWWB) provides scholarships on paper, these benefits rarely reach the children who need them most due to opaque systems, digital barriers, documentation hurdles, and administrative delays.
The Problem: Scholarships Exist, But So Do Gaps
A multi-state study on scholarship access shows that 83% of marginalised students had not received their scholarship amounts in 2024 due to complex applications with unclear eligibility criteria, lack of information and awareness, repeated rejections despite proper documentation, difficulty in navigating digital platforms, and inability to lose a day’s wages to visit government offices. Most students only hear about scholarships informally, while documentation requirements and forms not available in local languages make the system inaccessible, particularly to first-generation learners. Similarly, a case study on migrant construction workers’ children in Bengaluru found that 98% of workers were not registered as construction workers, despite having the eligibility, making welfare entitlements unclaimed.
One mother, Parvathi, reflects her struggle. Despite holding a valid labour card, she could not prove her worker status on the digital portal, blocking her child’s scholarship entirely. Her experience mirrors thousands of migrant families who are legally entitled to benefits yet systematically denied access.
In October 2023, when the government drastically reduced scholarship amounts, for example, slashing the Class 1–5 benefit from ₹5,000 to ₹1,100, the pressure on marginal families intensified. This rollback would have severely affected children’s ability to remain in school.
It took collective action to reverse this. Karnataka Kattada Shramikara Sangha (KKSS), the construction workers’ union formed by Sampark with currently 8,000 members, joined hands with prominent Union bodies, including Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), and the Karnataka State Construction Workers Central Union (KSCWCU) to challenge the cuts. After sustained advocacy, the original scholarship amounts were restored, a significant victory proving how organised worker voices can protect entitlements that directly shape children’s futures.
How Sampark Made a Difference:Turning Entitlements Into Reality
Over the last five years, Sampark has worked closely with migrant construction workers to close the entitlement gap through on-ground support, documentation assistance, and digital facilitation, through its 3 Worker’s Resource Centers (WRCs), one-stop places for migrant workers for all their information and access to their entitlements. Through this, Sampark has enabled over 3,000 migrant children to access scholarship benefits worth more than ₹40,00,000.
One father, Raghunath, a migrant worker in the construction sector for 10 years, captures the transformative impact. For years, he struggled to navigate the system; despite being eligible, his three children received nothing. It was only through Sampark’s intervention that he learned about the KBOCWWB scholarship and received ₹38,400 for the 2024–25 academic year.
“If it weren’t for this scholarship, my son Mangesh would have had to drop out and work with me at construction sites,” he says. Today, instead of facing long hours of labour, like the 23% of migrant children who drop out of schools to work, according to a research conducted by the Kailash Satyayarthi Education Foundation. Mangesh now attends school with textbooks, notebooks, shoes, and a bag. His dream of becoming an engineer now feels within reach.
In the same year alone, Sampark helped 41 migrant workers secure ₹2,52,677 in scholarship benefits, shielding migrant children from early labour, interrupted schooling, and intergenerational poverty.
Conclusion
Scholarships are rights. Yet rights denied in practice become rights erased. By bridging the gap between entitlement and access, Sampark ensures that migrant children are not pushed out of classrooms and into hazardous labour. Sampark’s field evidence over 34 years shows what is possible when systems support families instead of excluding them: children stay in school, parents avoid debt, and families move closer to stability.