Saturday, December 27, 2008

Education in tribal areas

I went for the fieldwork in the tribal area of Nandurbar district and my theme paper was on education. These areas are totally isolated from rest of country. The language spoken by majority of native people is only Bhilori and that creates a barrier to communication to the external world. The medium of education in the local schools is Marathi. The concept of playschool is absent in the village as the anganwadi exist just for namesake. So a child is introduced to altogether a different environment with teachers speaking in a totally alien language. These conditions generate fear for school among the young children. All these schools are affiliated to Maharashtra state education board and all the education material and syllabus is same throughout the state. Thus a tribal child will be studying the same things as studied by a child studying in metro cities like Mumbai. In such condition it becomes difficult for a tribal student to associate his learning in classroom with the external environment. Thus he loses interest in his studies and quit going to school if parent do not force him to do so.
Spread of education can play a catalytic role in development of these areas. Thus there is a need to ensure that government agencies, teachers and the tribal people join hands to improve the present situation. Education department should publish separate books and curriculum for the tribal children at least for the primary standard. The education material should be such that a student is able to relate it to environment around him. Educated people in tribal areas should be given special training and then they should be recruited as primary teachers. This will ensure that the teachers know vernacular language as well as the language spoken in state. Employment to educated tribal people will also inspire others to study. Panchayat has an important role to play in the process of transformation. They should ensure that schools are running properly and encourage people to send their children to school. Village education society should consist of educated and enthusiastic young people.
All these things collectively can help to ameliorate the condition of the tribal areas of the country.

2 comments:

Nishant said...

Dear Bhambhu

Just a reflection. We all went to different states and education scenario sadly has not been promising at most of the places including 'hindi' speaking belt. Very true that administration (panchayat, district admin etc.) and locale both need to work collectively for betterment of education and come out with new and better books, methods etc. But what has been happening to places where all this has been done. Some perfunctory operations are done and everyone goes home for a good night's sleep.
Alongwith corrective action some coercive action may be needed. we may debate on the 'coercive' mode but waiting for conscience to get up has not been helping. May be a jerk would do but its easier said than done I guess.

nidhi negi said...

I too went to the same tribal belt of Maharashtra. But maybe due to the proximity to the the road, the education status in our village was atleast better. But i saw a negative aspect of it. The new generation, who is in higher secondary or graduation are unwilling to help their parents in farming. Neither are they trained enough for the office work in the cities. Tribal are generally poor people. If this continues to happen, they may be demotivated to study. Hence along with the formal education, they should be given training which would be necessary for earning their living for example there can be more agricultural and dairy colleges for them so that they carry on with their traditional occupation in their own land with new techniques and methods.