Dialogue on elementary education in tribal areas

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Presentation on Status of Elementary Education
In Tribal Areas of Orissa
Presentation By Dr. Mahendra Kumar
Mishra mkmfolk_at_gmail.com
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1. Overview of Tribes in Orissa

• There are 62 tribal groups in Orissa.
• They constitute 23 of the total state population
• Thirty two tribes speak in their own languages
• Rest of the tribal has partially or totally
  assimilated in to Oriya language.
• Some of them have lost their language. (Gonds,
  Kondh, Mirdhas, Binjhals)
• Out of 30 districts 15 districts are with high
  tribal population.
• Seven tribal districts of south Orissa are with
  low female literacy (They are Kalahandi, Nuapada,
  Nabarangpur, Gajapati, Koraput, Rayagada,
  Malkangiri)
• Out of 314 Blocks 118 Blocks are under TSPlan
  having
• 50 to 100 tribal population.
• There are 13 Primitive Tribal Group (PTG) with
  out having
• access to communication, health and education.

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2. Tribal languages and major tribes
There are three tribal language groups in Orissa

• Austro-Asiatic (Santali, Munda, Saora Ho, Kol,
  Bonda etc.)
• Dravidian (Gond, Kondh, Kurukh,)
• Indo-Aryan (Bhunjia ,Bhumia, Bhatra etc)

Major /Primitive Tribes in Orissa

• Major Tribes
• Gond(7.0), Kondh(11.40), Santal(6.29),
  Saora(4.0), Munda(3.96),
• Koya((1.41),Kol((4.0) Kishan(2.66), Khadia(1.68),
  Parja((3.53), Oroan(2.57)
• Primitive Tribes
• Bonda, Choktia-Bhunjia, Kutia, Dongria Kondh,
  Lanjia Saora,
• Paudi Bhuiyan, Lodha, Didayi, Juang,Saora,

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3.Community participation

• Most of the tribal parents are non- literate
  and poor. Schooling directly affects their day
  to day income by drawing their children from
  home.
• Poor school community relation VECs are not
  active tribal members are silent listeners
• Tribal women are not concerned with their
  children's schooling
• Parents give little attention to their children
  in home on education
• Tribal community have mixed opinion regarding
  usingtribal language in
• primary schools.
• Educated tribal oppose using tribal language in
  classroom
• Teachers in tribal areas do not involve the
  community n school process
• The experience of the tribal community, which is
  the best source to construct knowledge on tribal
  children, is not cared.

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4. Teaching in Bi-lingual Education in tribal
area schools

• Tribal area schools are monolingual in nature
  (only tribal language speakers)
• Many schools are bi-lingual in nature (Oriya
  and tribal speakers)
• Teachers are not trained and do not know about
  teaching in bi-lingual
• education
• Tribal children are the source of mediating
  their local language with
• textbook language
• Learning is a mutual process among teachers
  and children, a teacher should be ready to
  learn the local language from the children, but
• non-tribal teachers dont promote bilingual
  education

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5. Enrollment of ST children in Orissa
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6. Class wise Enrollment of ST Students 2004-05
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7. Early Classes of ST Children

• About 748000 Children of class I to lass III
  face severe language difficulties in
  comprehending the content and language.
• The teachers do not take interest in
  childrens mother tongue
• In early classes ST children promoted to
  higher classes having a weak foundation in
  content knowledge and also in language.
• Tribal Children are unable to read in regional
  language and comprehend the texts properly.
  
• Even they read the text they dont understand
  the meaning of the text. Rote memory
  followed in the classrooms help them in answering
  the questions with out proper
  comprehension.
• Children fail to understand abstract symbols
  like subtractions, sum, division and
  addition in arithmetic.
• Pronunciation of aspirated words is difficult
  since in the tribal phonetics is
  completely different.
• Since reading and understanding are
  difficult, writing skill also becomes
  difficult among the children.
• Dropouts of Tribal children is 77

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8. Attitude of Teachers

• Tribal language is inferior to the regional
  language.
• There's no grammar in spoken language.
• Spoken language is limited to the community
  and not by others,
• Tribal language is parochial, not recognized,
• Tribal language is not superior to the
  regional language.
• Tribal language is not the language of power
• Tribal children are docile
• Tribal girls are slow in comprehension
  compared to the boys
• Non tribal children are good in mathematics

Childrens apprehension in classroom

• They should not use mother tongue in
  classrooms/schools
• If they use mother tongue, teachers will scold
  them,
• Other students will tease them,
• Using mother tongue in school is a matter of
  shame.
• Teachers encourage the children to use
  regional language than mother tongue.
• Even teachers belonging to tribal community
  also feel shy in using mother tongue in
  classroom.
• Teachers dont understand their language

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9.State Vision

• The tribal Advisory Board is yet to decide
  on
• imparting education to the tribal children in
  mother
• tongue at least in primary classes, where the
  gap of home
• language and school language is high.
• The State Teacher Training Institute or
  teacher training
• Curriculum does not reflect the tribal education
  as a subject.
• Even in Ashram Schools school culture is
  assimilative than contextual.
• Curriculum from the context is absent.
• Dichotomy of core and contextual
• areas in pedagogy is yet to be decided.
• Teachers as well as DI of schools dont follow
  that
• National policy of Education has provision of
  mother tongue
• education in tribal areas in primary classes.
  Therefore they
• dont promote tribal language in primary
  education
• Teachers dont use tribal primer due to want
  of official

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10. DPEP Intervention
In Orissa DPEP, some concrete steps were taken to
address the tribal Education
Preparation 1996-97

• Formation of State and District Resource Group
  (involving linguists, Tribal experts,
  anthropologists, teachers from tribal community,
  non tribal teachers having interest in
  tribal culture and language, pedagogists)
• Identifying the issues on education of the
  tribal children (through workshop mode and
  through individual survey conducted among the
  tribal area teachers)
• Identified the training need of tribal area
  teachers (through workshops and survey)
• Teachers prepared training Module in the
  context of socio- cultural and linguistic
  variations with state support
• Conducted Linguistic survey and mapping to
  assess the gap of home language and school
  language in 25 Blocks with more than 70 tribal
  with gap of home language and school
  language)

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11. Process-I 98-2001

• Training of Teachers
• Trained 350 Master Trainers on pedagogic issues
  in tribal context from selected tribal Blocks on
  Attitudinal Aspects.
• Attitudinal Training 20000 teachers in 87
  Blocks with high tribal concentration were
  trained up by the 350 MTs. The focal theme of the
  training was Understanding tribal children,
• Learning theories of language
• mother tongue education,
• addressing bilingual classroom,
• using folklore for language TLM,
• motivation of tribal children,
• attitude and behaviour of teachers in tribal
  area school,
• Integrating natural learning with school
  learning
• Tribal society as the source of school
  development
• Specific role of BRC and CRC in high tribal
  areas

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ReflectionThe need for preparation of
tribal bilingual primers was emerged from the
teacher training . The process was initiated
with the effective teachers.First step was
tapping the language resources of the tribal
community Need identification of teachers led
to need identification of tribal childrenby the
teachers under attitudinal trainingJati
Mahasabha Tapping Community resources- Jati
Mahasabha- for ensuring access and enrollment of
children and stopping teacher absenteeism and
intervening in school management, and putting
pressure on education officers for providing
teachers, infrastructure, supervision, TLM,
strengthening ST, SC and woman in (VEC and MTA)
Tribal youth as community mobilize In 800 Gram
Panchayat, tribal educated youths were engaged on
contractual basis as youth educator/ community
mobilizes to ensure access of all children in the
GP, conducting parental counseling and VEC, MTA
meeting, helping the teachers in preparing tribal
language materials, and coordinating with the CRC
and PRI members Sarpanch Result hike of 4 ST
and 3 SC enrollment in the Blocks Enrollment
of 13520 ST girls in 396 kanyashrams in KBK
Districts.
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12. Process-II 1999-2001

• Tribal bilingual primers were prepared by the
  teachers
• (in six languages Saora, Koya, Bonda, Kui, Kuvi
  and Juang)
• In the year 2001-2002, 63000 tribal children
  were provided with tribal primers
  supported with Picture Dictionary, Teachers
  Handbook, conversational chart, self
  learning materials for teachers, and language
  training module for non- tribal teacher
• The above materials were used in the
  schools. 2001-2003 Access and
  Retention Provision of access to 15320 St girls
  of 6-14 age group in396 Ashram
  Schools.
• 2004-2005
• In 2004-5 academic years about 100000 tribal
  children were provided the same materials.
• Adoption of Cluster approach to tribal
  education (CATE) in2005-06

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13.Process-III 98-2001

• Tribal bilingual primers were prepared by the
  teachers
• (in six languages Saora, Koya, Bonda, Kui, Kuvi
  and Juang)
• In the year 2001-2002, 63000 tribal children
  were provided with tribal primers
  supported with Picture Dictionary, Teachers
  Handbook, conversational chart, self
  learning materials for teachers, and language
  training module for non- tribal teacher
• The above materials were used in the
  schools.
• 2004-2005
• In 2004-5 academic years about 100000 tribal
  children were provided the same materials.
• Adoption of Cluster approach to tribal
  education (CATE) in2005-06, but this need
  proper implementation.

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14.Reflections

• Teachers in tribal areas took much interest in
  addressing tribal children from their
  socio-cultural context
• Teachers could know that local knowledge is
  the foundations for the children in her
  early education
• Teachers could know that tribal language and
  folklore are the best source to educate
  the children
• Teaching in bilingual classroom is more
  challenging than in mono-lingual
  situation
• Teachers associated the experience of the
  children with the text book knowledge
• Community interest in teaching Saora primer
  was amazing. They were taking part in
  classroom transaction and were suggesting the
  teachers .
• The reality that tribal language and
  folklore is most important in view of
  educating the children in the classroom was put
  in to images.
• Children could get their freedom of
  thinking, speaking and learning in their
  language and environment. Major tribal community
  now want to
• demand the government to introduce tribal
  language in schools. In some VECs use of
  tribal primers were encouraged

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15. Gaps

• The effectiveness of using these primers is yet
  to be assessed .
• Post Training activities were poor
• Core pedagogy was given more importance than
  contextual pedagogy
• One time training of teachers on tribal issues
  was not sufficient.
• After DPEP, posts of District Tribal
  Coordinators were abolished and merged in
  pedagogy unit.
• Lack of State institutional support and sustained
  efforts for establishing tribal education in
  teacher education
• Perception of decision makers differ from time to
  time, for which there is a lack of sustained
  support at the policy level
• Traditional school Inspectors, non- tribal
  teachers are apathetic to tribal education
  and their superior mindset do not allow them to
  
• accept that education of tribal children need
  separate attention.
• The Growing interest of teachers could not be
• sustained due to lack of sustained
  efforts
• Community were not oriented on use of primer,

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Gaps(contd)

• In present system, Special Focus Group was
  not addressed prior to DPEP or SSA at the
  state level. Even in SSA this intervention
  needs serious attention
• The good practices and best experience of DPEP
  or SSA project have not been
  institutionalized to replicate and sustain them
  in the State system.
• Therefore teachers need is not institutionally
  met with. SCERT and DIETS should take it
  up
• At the field level BRC and CRC need specific
  training on addressing context specific
  issues

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• CYSD, Agragamee, Siksha Sandhan,PREM are the
  leading NGOs in Orissa working on Tribal
  education in some areas.
• Recently CYSD has developed Tribal
  supplementary readers in Santali, Munda and
  Desia For tribal children.
• CYSD is in its process to evolve a Tribal
  Curriculum in Santal Community.
• Linguists, tribal pedagogists, tribal experts
  have no platform to sit together and plan for a
  sustained tribal education programme.

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Immediate Need

• Reactivating the SC/ST Unit in OPEPA as well as
  strong convergence with the Deptt of SC/ST
  Development
• Combining SC/ST and Girls Education activities
  in an integrated way to avoid duplication of
  activities in SSA
• NPEGEL and KGVB are two programs for
  Educationally back word Blocks(EBB) This
  programme need to be addressed properly to
  achieve desired results in specified time so
  that tribal girls can be educated and
  community can be empowered.
• Girls Education and SC/ST Education can be
  termed as Unit of Special Focus Group(SFG) in
  OPEPA .
• Providing extra support to these intervention
  for equity in education, considering the
  seriousness of low female and tribal
  illiteracy among the SC/ST children
• Some area specific micro projects may be taken
  in the clusters with more than 70 tribal.
• Community based programmes in Model Cluster
  School(MCS)
• Strong Monitoring network at the State and
  District level by the Stake holders
• Strong evaluation by the apex body of the
  State( Secretary, SME/ DirectorOPEPA)
• Thank you
• Contact Information. Dr MKMishra, Tel
  0674-2312289