Quality and meaningful education is the prerequisite for all child rights. BBA believes that poverty, illiteracy and child labour are part of a triangular paradigm, forming a vicious circle, where each is a cause and consequence of the other. Education is the key to the prevention of child labour, child trafficking and all manifestations of violations of child rights.
Therefore, BBA has early on spoken up for a law on free and compulsory education for all children in India and has formed the ‘Parliamentary Forum on Education’ in the 1990s to raise this demand before the legislators. In 2001, BBA organised and led a six months long campaign across India with a 15,000 km long march called the Siksha Yatra. At the time, former child labourers also got the chance to meet with the then PM Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee to demand a law on education. Subsequently, the Union Minister for Human Resource Development announced the government's intention to make a new law called the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, which was finally adopted in 2009.
BBA continues to be at the forefront in the fight for free and compulsory education. Recently, BBA has assisted the Government of India in defending the constitutional validity of the Right to Education Act. The founder of BBA Mr Kailash Satyarthi was also elected the first Chairperson and then the President of the Global Campaign for Education.