User:Mkmfolk

'Critical Issues related to Equitable Quality School Education in India

Contextualizing Tribal education in Orissa, India

 by Dr  Mahendra Kumar Mishra,Bhubaneswar , India 'Bold text'Bold text'''' 

Introduction:

Tribal people constitute about 8.8% of the total population of India. Their contribution in shaping Indian culture through their language, tradition, customs, and integrated worldview cannot be ignored. Their rich cultural and human value system contains the powers of maintain the cultural bio diversity thereby keeping the globe ecologically sound. But unfortunate they are underestimated, misjudged, and historically marginalized. Their land, culture and heritage, which is established in more eco-socio- religious life through oral tradition are yet to be recognized in the modern educational domain. Historically, some token measures have been taken to incorporate their languages and cultures in the mainstream school education, but nowhere in the country , till today, a culturally appropriate curriculum for the tribal children has ever been made to ensure linguistic and cultural rights that enshrined under Article 46 of the Indian constitution.

There are 698 scheduled tribes out of which 75 tribes are identified as primitive tribes ( endangered tribes ). In order to promote the tribal people Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India had a conscious vision about their land, social tradition, language and culture. Therefore he formulated five principles in 1952 for tribal of India to guide the administration of Tribal Affairs. They are,

1. People should develop along the lines of their own genius and we should avoid imposing anything on them. We should try to encourage in every way their own traditional arts and culture. 2. Tribal rights in land and forests should be respected. 3. We should try to train and build up a team of their own people to do the work of administration and development. Some technical personnel from outside will, no doubt, are needed, especially in the beginning. But we should avoid introducing too many outsiders in to tribal territory. 4. We should not over- administer these areas or overwhelm them with a multiplicity of schemes. We should rather work through, and not in rivalry to, their own social and cultural institutions. 5. We should judge results, not by statistics or the amount of money spent, but by the quality of human character that is evolved.

Looking at the status of tribal people in India, it would be evident that how the tribal land, language and livelihood are distorted.

Tribal in a Stateless Political system :Constitution of India has provided the privileges for the scheduled tribes of India relating to their land, language and rights. Within these six decades tribal in India have been victimized. Their land, territory, identity, language, tradition and culture are in constant threat. When India got its independence , tribal were again redistributed among the states and they became the victim of Indian( inland) colonialism. “Indigenous people is a blanket term for aboriginal inhabitants of a territory who are relatively powerless politically and only partially integrated in to the dominant nation-state. Indigenous people are associated with non industrial modes of production and a stateless political system” (Abraham: 2005:190)

When they are in a stateless political system their education has also is similarly in a stateless educational policy system since the state language as official  language dominated the tribal   and other minority languages. 

In postcolonial Indian education system education remained in the concurrent list and the state has its role to ensure education of all children irrespective of caste , gender, religion and languages. The states adopted the majority language as the official language. This policy in fact created discrimination for its top down approach in opening schools and appointment of teachers. People from urban and upper class society controlled the education system and thus linguistic and ethnic minority children were marginalized. They were forced to study in a language that is not known to them from their early child hood. Till now neither the medium of instruction nor the content of the curriculum is suitable to the linguistic and ethnic minority children. The natural environment ,socio cultural context of the tribal children are not reflected in the curriculum and text books considering that the tribal community are less civilized and the current education would mainstream them through a content and language that is belong to the state driven uniform monolingual medium of instruction. This is a serious loss of human resource. The children’s learning is blocked. The negative consequences like high dropouts, low achievement and wastage of resources, achieving poor quality of education and failure in achieving national goal. Thus by not providing a context specific education , the schools are unable to response to the children of diverse linguistic and cultural background and subsequently the children feel that they are marginalized since they don’t understand the language and content of the classroom that is taught to them. Here begins the deprivation of children in the school and the serious mental damage of the children by learning in a situation that is not familiar to him. Constitutional Provision: Constitution of India article 29 (1) and Article 350 (A) safeguard the linguistic right of the minority children in school. It is the duty of the state to provide education to the children of linguistic minority children in the school at least in the primary stage. Article 21 A- Free and compulsory elementary education of equitable quality for all children up to 14 years of age. Article 29 (1) : Any section of the citizens residing in the territory of India or any part thereof having a distinct language, script or culture of its own shall have the right to conserve the same. Article 46- State to promote the Educational needs of the weaker sections of the society. Article 350A: It shall be the endeavor of every State and of every local authority within the State to provide adequate facilities for instruction in the mother-tongue at the primary stage of education to children belonging to linguistic minority groups; and the President may issue such directions to any State as he considers necessary or proper for securing the provision of such facilities

National Educational Goal The National Policy of Education 1986 has the provision of mother tongue education to the tribal children. The National Curriculum Framework 2005 has also envisages the provision of multilingual education in the schools in the primary stage as well as provide education in first language/ home language to the children. The NCF 2005 has spelt out that multilingual education is not a problem but is a resource. Not using the language of the child as the medium of instruction and imagining child centered learning is the paradox in education. This is a trend in the existing education system where the language in education is not considered as prerequisite for any comprehensive learning. The problem is not with the children or the teachers but the problem is with the status planning which addresses the broader questions of language policy , language attitude, choice of dialect/language and officialization and acceptance of a new language .( Walter :2000:7) The National Focus Group of NCF 2005 on Problems of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Children (2007) has clearly spelt out the critique of school curriculum from the perspective of SC/ST groups. It examines the curriculum “ as a mediator of dominance and hegemony and explores ideological issues in the selection of knowledge that have a bearing on education of oppressed groups.xxx It further explains “In India , curriculum and the content of education have been central to the process of reproduction of patterns of caste, class, cultural and patriarchal domination –subordination. Post independence education policy aimed at nationalization and indigenization of colonial curriculum. But with an ideological context dominated by social , intellectual and economic elites, Brahminical knowledge and pedagogic practice acquired hegemonic status in framing of the curriculum.xxxThis has been evident in the curriculum’s emphasis on ( a) pure language ( b) high caste literary and other knowledge of society , history polity religion and culture that reflects Brahminical worldview. (2007:24 Position Paper) Regarding the use of tribal language as the medium of instruction and also as a language subject the state curriculum has not created any space for the inclusion of tribal language and tribal knowledge system in schools. There should be a space for the nontribal also to understand the tribal knowledge system that is substantially important in terms of maintaining cultural biodiversities. But many of the state curriculum designers don to understand the necessity of inclusion of diverse cultural resources from the ethnic and linguistic minorities in to the state syllabus. Thus the hegemony of the state curriculum deliberately ignores the tribal knowledge system that shapes the holistic identity of the state. It is necessary that the state curriculum designers should be able to provide space to everybody that represents the regional resources, local knowledge, languages and cultures. But being unable to understand the national goal in the context, state curriculum becomes the replica of the National curriculum, (even translation of NCF syllabus or some token changes /addition). Ten states of India have substantial tribal population with low tribal literacy, less achievement , but the attempts that is taken under DPEP and SSA are not based on long-term goal, and the state system is always in a eagerness to mainstream the tribal children in an early exit mode. In DPEP and in SSA till date no concrete long term plan has been adopted to address the complex educational needs of tribal children.

Therefore    the NCF  2005    along with the  11 th  Five year plan stands for the  multilingual  education of  minority children    in the   primary stage. It is the duty of the state to provide   education to the children in their language... 
Even   after a  span of  sixty  years ,our education system has not been able to  cope  up with the    “Indian  Education  system “that  is free from colonial mind set , rather  the   number   and definition of marginalized  has been increased  with the  increase of the  neo-colonial  education that separates  the masses from the elites  of the country. Looking at the five principles of Nehru it can be evident that how   the tribal society in India have rapidly eroded and collapsed even after a lot of economic development plans have made for them.   Instead a   gap in the education of rich and education of poor is visible in the current education system.

After independence, many Committees   have been set up by the Govt.   of India   for the economic development of  tribal people of the country. Most of the programmes are top down in approach, ignoring the local tribal people. But  it is  evident  that  tribal people in the country have been displaced  for  development of   the nation and  they have lost their land, language  and livelihood and are in constant threat  of displacement, either  from the forest  or from the locality. Migration, displacement and rehabilitation and urban tribal settlement as labourers led to the tribal deprivation, especially in Independent India   is spite of the   constitutional safeguards to them. 

 In Search for Indian Education system:

Tribal Education in   Post Colonial India:

Before independence Mahatma Gandhi had conceptualized Basic Elementary Education which was exclusively a bottom up approach where the villagers manage their own school as a unit of learning. In order to have an education free from colonialism Gandhi had a clear vision. In 1921, when India was struggling for freedom Mahatma Gandhi realized the education system that is established by the British Rule and reacting to that he wrote in Young India

“Literacy in itself is no education.xx the basic education is meant to transform village children in to model villagers. It is principally designed for them. The inspiration for it comes from the village.xxx Primary Education is a farce designed without regard to the wants of the India of the villages and for the matter even of the cities. Basic education links the children whether of the cities or the villages, to all that is best and lasting in India.xx

The dry knowledge of the three Rs is not even now , it can never be a permanent part of the villagers’ life.xxThe school must be an extension of home; there must be concordance between the impressions which a child gathers at home and at school,-if the best results are to be obtained. Education through the medium of a strange tongue breaks the concordance which should exist. Those who break this relationship are the enemies of the people even though their motives may be honest. To be a voluntary victim of this system of education is as good as the betrayal of our duty to our mothers. The harm done by this alien type of education does not stop here; it goes much further. It has produced a gulf between the educated classes and the masses. (Young India 27/4/1921,p.130 in 1968:452)

Even Gandhi was critical to English. His opinion about English is still relevant to the millions of non English Speakers of the country. Gandhi wrote, "English is to day admittedly the world language. I would therefore accord it a place as a second, optional language, not in the school, but in the universal course. That can only be for the select few- not for the millions… It is our mental slavery that makes us feel that we cannot do without English. I can never subscribe to that defeatist creed. (Harijan 25/8/46 p. 284 in 1968: 443)

India, before independence conceptually inherited the western European Nation state ideology of the 19th century: one country –one nation- one culture- one language. Africa was also not free from this syndrome. (Wolff: 2004:43) This was the outcome of national romanticism. In this trend many small languages were submerged in the uniform monolingual state language driven schools and thus the linguistic and cultural diversities are deliberately ignored. The Tribal Development department opened Ashram Schools in which tribal children from many communities were enrolled speaking many languages. But they were also denied to speak their mother tongues. Instead of that a uniform state language was introduced as the medium of instruction which was unintelligible to the children.

After Independence, the states of India followed the same paradigm and ignored the multilingualism an multiculturalism of diverse sociocultural situation of the state and a uniform monolingual education system was introduced. The ladder of international language as official language ( English )> regional languages ( state languages) > mother tongues/ local languages were in the socio-linguistic pyramid where the local languages / mother tongues are eroded or ignored .English and the state languages became the language of power. Therefore the local languages, tribal languages that were the store house of indigenous knowledge were looked down. The negative language attitude towards tribal language which was perpetuated in the past again reinforced in the state schooling system and the constitutional provision was a far reaching goal for the tribal children.

Mean while globalization appeared in the scenario and the concept of free market economy dominated the realm of education. It advocated in favour of education as a means of production rather considering it as a means of developing human values. English , as though spoken by four percent of the country population appeared as the language of power and educational planners accepted it mentioning that every parents want to teach their children in English from the early childhood. This led to a monolingual world where the multilingual society is discarded.

But the international development planners, linguists, educationist and psychologists have advocated for indigenous knowledge , education and development through a system that is favourable to their relationship with the land and its artifacts, and its loss lead to the loss of rich human knowledge and resources that is manifested in their language and culture.( Alcorn : 2006 ;18)

After 80 years of empirical evidence in the field of multilingualism and education it is established that multilingualism is a resource than a problem. The studies and practice taken by the pedagogists, linguists and psychologists reveals that children can learn multiple languages simultaneously.

Critical Issues in Tribal Education in Orissa

There is no state policy on language education, let alone to speak of tribal education. Only the state language is used as the medium of instruction in the schools. Though three language formulas are adopted in the state, mother tongue of the child is still neglected.

1. The politics of State Curriculum and unrepresented tribal education

The nation state model adopted the education system inherited from the colonial model and therefore even the Gandhian model of basic Education was also failed. Contextual issues of education, or looking at the village as the source of knowledge was ignored. The state education system shaped the curriculum and text books according to the need of middle class children and ignored the educational needs of tribal society in their states. This practice is still continuing in the states for which the tribal people don’t have a system of education which could be fit in to their socio-cultural context. Thus a submersion model of education was adopted where the tribal society, culture and language was unrepresented.

2. Contextualizing vs. Mainstreaming

Schools are the representation of a colonial model which denies the local knowledge which is the prerequisite of children’s learning. Schools, curriculum, text books and teaching methods are uniform across the state ignoring the geographical, socio-cultural and linguistic diversities of the tribal people. Thus in the name of mainstreaming the hegemony prevailed in the schools and local knowledge is denied and it is a post colonial class drive to maintain the dominance over the socio-economically disadvantaged. The Ashram Schools that were opened after independence in the tribal districts of the country are the model of mainstreaming, since children of many ethnic groups with their many mother tongues were enrolled in these residential schools and they were taught in a language that is not intelligible. In fact the Ashram schools could have been the center of many language resources with many local knowledge drawn from the many ethnic groups to maintain the languages and cultures. But the school was the symbol of eliminating the parental cultural and linguistic ability of the children for making them “ literate”.

3. Quality Education without using mother tongue vs. Using State language:

The state/official language is adopted as the medium of instruction for all children in the state and the importance of mother tongue in education for tribal children was denied. Use of unfamiliar  language forces the   nontribal teacher  to  use teacher-centered teaching methods which  undermine the  teachers  effort to  teach and  learners effort to learn. Therefore learning   is blocked. In using an unfamiliar language of child in classroom teacher do talk and children are silent/passive. This lead the teachers   to adopt chorus method, repetitions, rote memory, and safe talk without caring the cognitive aspects of the children...This  situation lead to school ineffectiveness  and low academic  achievement  experienced by the   tribal children.

It is quite impossible   to impart quality education without the language of the child. The language of thought and language of   speech determines the cognitive development of the children. Child sees and understands her world through her language that shapes her cognitive development. But neither the language nor the visual world of the child is reflected in education. So quality for all children without context and language is meaningless for tribal children. It is like in democracy majority should be granted and minority is deprived.

4. Nontribal teachers and tribal children: asking the quality focus.

About 90   % teachers teaching in the primary schools of Orissa are non- tribal and they don’t understand the language of the children. It is a binary opposition between the child centered learning and teacher centered pedagogy.  Even if the teachers are very good in teaching methods, they fail to educate the tribal children 
 

5. Top down vs. Bottom up Approach:

Till date the community demand is sound except the Santali community. Though their community demands their language is included in the 8th schedule of the constitution which is a major example of recognition of a nonscheduled language to a scheduled language. This means the state and the nation have to provide education to the Santali children. Since this was a bottom up approach the Santali community could establish their demand. There are many tribal languages like Saura, Oram, Chui, Munda, Koll and Kishan that require such recognition. Though the Santali is a non-state language stretched away from Orissa and Jharkhand to north east across Bangladesh and Nepal, it is through their language that they have established their educational demand through bottom up approach.

6.The Top down approach on primary education like DPEP, SSA , KGBV and NPEGEL have guidelines to address the context specific issues of children, but since the planners and implementers are either ignorant of the critical issues of language education of the girls and boys they don’t address the context specific issues and thus the top down approach only touches the visible physical progress and ignores the intellectual progress of the children.

7. Community vs. school as the provider of knowledge: Till date the school has been the provider of uniform knowledge to the children of diverse language and social group. Even the National Curriculum Framework has given clear mandate for using local knowledge for education and based on that literacy and numeracy through these knowledge to connect the experiential knowledge of the children with that of the new knowledge, schools are apathetic to the tribal children. They are in the state of double exclusion. They fail in achieving the school knowledge completely in one hand and they lose their local knowledge on the other.

8. Parents aspiration vrs psycholologists concern in children: Global English vs. local mother tongue Parent’s aspiration to teach their children in English has been high in urban and semi urban areas. Even this trend is spread in tribal areas also. This has been criticized by the psycholinguists. The relation of a foreign language with cognitive aspect is totally missing in the teaching learning system in the context of any child. This is a serious mental harm to the children and also against the linguistic human right.

Theoretical Framework

Standard of   Quality education : five   key components.

i.Learning is meaningful when the teacher and student work together for a productive learning. This facilitates the learning through joint productive activity among teachers and learners. Ii.Learning takes place through language and literacy. This ensures development competence in the language and literacy of instruction across the curriculum. Iii.The Most important standard of learning is making meaning by connecting student’s life with school knowledge. This means socio-cultural context of the child is important in connecting the experiential learning of the children with the new curricular learning. This indicates contextualize teaching and curriculum in the experience and skill s of the children’s home and communities.

Based on the context of the children the curriculum and teaching materials are prepared with the help of community and teachers which lead the teaching to complex thinking. iv. Children face the challenges of cognitive complexity. V.The fifth standard of effective quality teaching is teaching through dialogue or conversation between teacher and students that helps exploring the instructional conversation.

Subtractive Education Model:

Any education system that introduces the official language as a medium of instruction from class I is termed as subtractive education model.

Additive Education Model: If the objective of the education system is to use mother tongue as a medium of instruction throughout or use MT plus official /foreign language as two (medium of instruction to the end of school is additive education model. In additive education model mother tongue is not removed and never used less than 50 % of the days/subjects. This model targets at high level of proficiency both in MT and foreign language.

Mother tongue education:

schooling beginning   with   the   first language ( L1)   for  reading ,writing  and learning  while  teaching   the L2( National /state/foreign language )  

Bilingual Education:

Using two languages for literacy and instruction

Multilingual Education:

Use more than two languages   for literacy and instruction.
The use of mother tongue  as the medium of instruction  for at least  8 years of schooling  and  gradually  bridging to the  second languages  (  official  language/foreign language )refers to multilingual education. 
BICS:
Jim Cummins    refer the basic interpersonal communication skill as BICs  

CALPS

Cognitive   Academic Language Proficiency Skills as CALPs. Both   are complementary to each other. While   BICS   are informal and experiential, CALPs are    formal language learning in the classroom in a structured manner.

Informal language learning: learning of children takes place in the home and society in informal context .This is a preschool experiential learning taken place at home and in the community .Child start learning and gain much experience before coming to school.

Early exit and Late exit:  

Using mother tongue for early transition from MT to second language in the school is early exit. Some believe that to mainstream, only two or three years is sufficient to teach the children in mother tongue and to then to shift to the second language. But in late exit use of mother tongue is at least 8 years beginning from the preschool education.

Orissa Scenario from Tribal Context :

The state of Orissa in eastern India is predominantly rural. The majority (85 percent) of its 36.8 million people live in rural areas, and nearly half the population live below the poverty line.1 Of the 698 Scheduled Tribes listed by the government, 62 live in Orissa and form about 22 percent of the state’s population.

The state has experienced a phenomenal expansion of its elementary education system. While the literacy rate has improved by 14.6 percentage points (higher than the National improvement of 13 percentage points), female literacy has increased by 16.2 percent between 1991 and 2001, higher than the average 15 percent increase across India. Alongside, 96.13 percent of schoolchildren in Orissa have access to a primary school within a walking distance of one km (against the national average of 93.03 percent) and 91.73 percent of school children in Orissa have access to an upper primary school within a distance of 3 kms (against the national average of 87.91 percent). But in spite of these physical facilities the literacy rate of the tribal in Orissa is challenging. More over quality of education in schools is a major challenge.

The state of Orissa has 62 scheduled tribes which constitute about 23 percent of the total state population. Majority of them are concentrated in 17 districts of the state. The tribal people of Orissa can be divided ethno-linguistically into (a) the Austric Language Group, (b) the Dravidian language Group and (c) the Indo-Aryan language group. Their distinct language and culture, customs and worldview are different from the mainstream culture.

Tribal Literacy in Orissa

India Orissa Gap Persons Male Female Persons Male Female 1991 29.60 40.65 18.19 27.10

28.09 2001 47.10 59.17 34.76 37.37 51.48 23.37 21.71 (Selected Educational Statistics 2002-03) The literacy rate of Orissa in 2001 is 63.08(75.36 males and 50.51 female) and the tribal literacy rate is below the state average. Over a period of ten years the growth of literacy among the tribal is 26 %.

According to the Census of India, literacy rate among tribal people in Orissa is 37.37. Of the literates, males constitute 51% and females 23.47%. The total literacy rate of the state is 63.00 out of which male literacy rate is 73.00 and female literacy is 51.00. The overall gap of literacy is 38%, in which the gap in male literacy is 41.25 % and the gap in female literacy is 54%.

While tribal literacy in Orissa was 9.46 in 1971, it was 13.96 in 1981. Again it increased to 27.10 in 1991 and during 2001 it was 37.37. This indicates the slow progress in literacy among tribal people in Orissa over the last three decades. At this rate how long Orissa will take to achieve 100% literacy is anybody’s guess.

Enrollment of Tribal Children:

In 2007-08  total  number of  children  of 6-14 age group in the  state  was 6741683 out of which  ST children was 17,44381.Total  enrolled  tribal  children  in the state  at primary level is 11,74,809  and  in  upper primary schools it is 283821.Rest of the  ST children are in   other schools. At present 205742    ST children are out of schools in selected   twelve districts dominated by tribal population. 

In 2007-08 enrollment of ST children is increased up to 89. 49 % and now there are only 10.51 % ST children in the elementary level are out of school children. The access and enrollment of ST children and provision of infrastructure in tribal areas have been helpful in providing space to the socially disadvantaged children in schools especially ST/SC girls.

Class wise ST children in the State:

Class I 320385 Class II 257650 Class III 239676 Class IV 211162 Class V 147828 Class VI 130492 Class VII 87908 Total Schools 61373

The   number of  ST children in   the  schools  especially   in Class I  to  Class III  are   about  8,00000 whose  home language is  different from the school language.  Their home and peer-group-communication and social communication is restricted to their home language and they seldom get  opportunity to  speak a language other than  their  home language or mother tongue.  Tribal children in Class   III   to V are unable to   read   the text book properly, let alone to understand the content. In Class I  and Class II   tribal children don’t open up  and  they don’t  speak  in the classroom since   the language  teaching  skill are not properly   introduced. Hence the children   spend their school time in a culture of silence.

Dropout rate: In 2002 -03 dropout rate of ST children in primary stage was 56.28 (58.03 ST boys and 53.50 girls). In Upper primary stage ST dropout rate was 78.12 ( boys 77.45 and girls 79.12). This indicates the high dropouts of ST children in both primary and upper primary stage. IN upper primary stage the dropout of girls is very high, for which the literacy rate of tribal women in the state is low. In addition to this it is found that the overall number of girls per 100 boys enrollment by stages of school education is 75. (90 in primary and 81 in upper primary). This indicates that the ST girls are heavily dropedout in upper primary stage.

After   SSA intervention the dropout rate   has been reduced considerably. Following table indicates the dropout rate of ST children in the state. 

(Dropout Rate at Primary Level- Category Over all Children ST children Gap Year Total Girls Total Girls Total Girls 2002-03 34.7 36.5 53.4 57.4 19 21 2003-04 33.6 35.4 52.0 56.0 19 21 2004-05 32.0 32.7 52.0 56 20 23 (Source: Directorate of Elementary Education, Orissa 2005)

 Dropout rate of ST children in elementary level is as follows:

Category Over all Children ST children Gap Year Total Girls Total Girls Total Girls 2002-03 59.0 60.5 77.7 80.3 18 20 2003-04 57.5 58.6 70.3 73 13 15 2004-05 49.2 50.0 69.5 72 20 22

Schools with percentage of ST Children

(Management Informatics System, OPEPA 2007-08)

While the  number of ST children from Class I  to class III are    about  8  lakhs,   number of schools with  100%  ST children is also 4550  and  clubbed  with the  schools with  99  - 80 %   it   becomes around 10347.  It    clelarly indicates that  around  one sixth of the total schools in   Orissa    have  one  way or the other    have  language  diversities  and the children   are the target group  in these schools.  As though the   Child Census of Orissa  2005    has   identified these  issues based on the   enumeration, its sociolinguistic study  at the cluster level and school level   need  to be  taken up.

Schools with 100% ST Enrolment Schools with 99-90% ST Enrolment Schools with 89-80% ST Enrolment Schools with 79-70% ST Enrolment Schools with 69-60% ST Enrolment Schools with 59-50% ST Enrolment Schools with below 50% ST Enrolment Total No.of Schools % of 100% ST School 4550 3098 2699 2472 2653 2539 43362 61373 7.41

Schools in Tribal Areas: Linguistic Minority children in the schools of Orissa:

► As per the enumeration of Orissa Child Census 2005 conducted by OPEPA, there are 19340 schools having 20+ students of Linguistic Minority group and total no. of such students in these schools are 10,99,240. Nearly 2/3rd of them (711607) belong to Santali language and (150680) & other Tribal languages. (560927). ► 10 Districts account for over 92% of these Tribal languages group children (Source: OPEPA MIS 2008)

Out of school ST children:

• Tribal Children 10 districts contribute towards nearly 80% of the total out-of-school ST children. These are Koraput (25540), Nabrangpur (25273), Rayagada (22771) & Keonjhar (19645) are the top four closely followed by Sundergarh (13293), Malkangiri (12938), Mayurbhanj (12172), Sambalpur (11348) • Kalahandi (10600) and Bolangir (9994) bring up the rear. This constitute 1, 63 574 ST children in ten districts out of total 2, 05742 ST children.

This indicates that the districts with linguistic diversities have most out-of-school children.

Comparatively tribal education and literacy have shown little significant improvement during the last three decades. The major reasons are inadequate schooling facilities in tribal areas, poor infrastructure, single-teacher schools, unsuitable curriculum and instructional materials, untrained teachers, gap between home and school languages and lack of academic resources for teachers in tribal areas.

• The Vision Document 2020( 2003:311) published by the School and Mass Education Department indicates that inappropriate medium of instruction, imperfect teacher-pupil communication, unsuitable curricula and textbooks, incompatible formal school environment and less community participation are some of the causes which impede the learning of tribal children and result in high dropout rates. Tribal children alone constitute 27% of the total school dropouts in Orissa.

Understanding the challenges of the education of tribal children in the state, there is lack of a sustainable programme which lead to a policy or a policy that elad to the programme. This lead to the tribal children in double disadvantaged.

II

Tribal Education intervention in Orissa:

Understanding the challenges and situating  the programme:
Indicators of  intervention:

• 23.37 tribal women literacy • 4500 schools with 100% tribal children which constitute 7 . 7 percent of the total number of schools. • 711,,601 tribal children in Class I to Class III in school facing the language disadvantage • High dropout of tribal children in upper primary schools • Dropouts of tribal girls comparing to the boys is alarming. • Noncontextual curriculum and text books • Nonresponsive school and classrooms • Community involvement in school is physical, not intellectual.

Historical Background:

Though sporadic attempt have been taken by the NCERT during 1982-84 for use of tribal languages in school curriculum through the state SCERT and SC/ST development department, there was no concrete plan for tribal children till the District Primary Education was introduced in the state during 1996. DPEP guidelines of Govt of India contain SC/ST intervention as a Special Focus Group. Accordingly district plans were made based on the requirement of the need of the tribal children.

District Primary Education programme : ( DPEP)

Some concrete steps were taken during 1997-2002 which was signatory in terms of addressing the issues of tribal education through teacher training, community mobilization, engaging tribal youths as community mobilizers, and using mother tongue for preparation of tribal primers for primary school children in six tribal languages. Some supplementary reading materials were also prepared and those were applied in some schools. But this was in addition to the existing syllabus without replacing the mainstream curriculum and text books. Again the teachers were also not familiar with the mother tongue education. However , the teacher training imparted in the tribal areas questioning the make beliefs of the non tribal as well as tribal teachers about the tribal children, tribal language and society was revealing. Teachers had little knowledge about the socio cultural and socio linguistic situation of the children. As though they were trained on child centered education in the pedagogical teachers training programme, the question of mother tongue of the children were not discussed.

More over due to lack of a systematic academic support on tribal education, this was highly experiential , (also revealing) which helped the teachers serving in the tribal areas to understand the learning needs of tribal children and they felt the teaching difficulties while teaching the tribal children. About 20,000 teachers in tribal areas were sensitized on tribal education and the real need of tribal children was felt and discussed in a wider educational domain. This was the initiation which was not properly supported by the system as it was a new initiative and invisible to the teachers/inspectors those who were comfortable in their uniform teaching programme and largely ignorant about the learning needs of tribal children.

Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA)

SSA  was lunched in  Indian states   since  2001. DPEP  was  the foundation  of the SSA. But the basic difference    of  SSA  with  DPEP  was that     while  DPEP was a programme   based  planning  like  pedagogy, Girls education,SC/ST education etc.   

In 2005 Govt. of India with the UN agencies made a dialogue through a national Conference held in Central institute of Indian Languages, Mysore where it was resolved that Multilingual Education should be adopted in the country as a programme strategy to educate the linguistic minority children in the schools. Andhra Pradesh had started MLE during 2003-04 with the help of some western MLE practitioners and experts. Orissa during 2006, adopted Multilingual Education as a programme to address the linguistic disadvantaged groups education through SSA .

In 2006 a National Conference was conducted by OPEPA and the findings of the conference was adopted by the government as a programme. In 2006-07 the state SSA initiated MLE programme in ten languages for a period of five years on pilot basis. The guiding principles of NCF 2005 and the syllabus was the foundation. Based on these principles, thematic approach was adopted for preparation of curriculum and instructional materials. The community teachers and the language resource persons from the respective languages were identified through a series of visioning workshop and then they were oriented on ML approach. The programme was based on the approach that is adopted in various countries of the world.

    The   state Tribal Advisory  Committee  headed by the Chief Minister of Orissa, in  the month of  July 2006  provisionally  declared   the  introduction of tribal languages  as  the medium of  instruction  in  primary schools   including  Santali as  the scheduled language( using  Ol   Chiki script).

But  the  efforts   to use  mother tongue in    experimental basis in  158 schools  out of at least  4500    100%    schools with  tribal children was  a big  challenge  since  this is a major breakthrough    in experimenting   the mother tongue  based  multilingual education at the cost of conventional schooling system. The nonnegotiable for the   adoption of   MLE approach were 

1. Teachers from the tribal community will be engaged. 2 Primary schools with at least five classes and at least 20 children in Class I 3. AT least five classrooms and five teachers (at least two mother tongue teachers) 4. Community / VEC agreement to use mother tongue as the medium of instruction 5. Community support for preparation of curriculum and reading materials for their own children. 6.International and National academic support 7.Forming a strong resource group in each language 8.Academic support at the district and sub district level

The District Collector as the Chairman of the District MLE Committee approved the   adoption of MLE schools in the   District SSA Committee and   schools were identified based on 100 %    ST children. Teachers from the same community were   identified from the existing teachers list and were   transferred to the    pilot schools to   teach in mother tongue. Local Resource persons were identified to support the   teacher s in preparation of context specific curriculum.
    

The tribal teachers State Resource Group) along with the DIET faculties of the respective districts took lead in framing the curriculum, collecting the local knowledge , preparing the them web and preparing the text books. International Multilingual Experts and National experts provided their academic input to the tribal teachers on the theories and methods of MLE and thus the MLE approach was implemented in the state.

In 2007-08 158 schools were adopted MLE approach in which teachers from their respective language were placed. In the first year total 4060 children were enrolled in the MLE pilot schools. Teachers were trained on MLE approach . the teachers involved in the curriculum development and material production were also the makers of training module . they also performed as the Master trainers to train the teachers of MLE schools. Thus a group of 120 teachers were regularly engaged in the MLE activities both in the state and in the field throughout the year to make it happen.

 The Block Resource   Center Coordinators and the Cluster  Resource  center Coordinators   were   the monitors  of the MLE  programme. They were  trained on  monitoring  of MLE  schools.
In the  year  2008-09   another   277   schools were  adopted on MLE approach  following the same  process of  selecting  the schools and teachers .

Briefly, MLE in Orissa rolled out from2006-07 and now it is in its third year .

SSA Orissa adopted MLE as a programme in 435 schools on pilot basis for a period of five years. But this was the most strenuous work that need a serious academic perseverance and a lot of efforts to make it a success one. But besides this, there are about 19000 schools with linguistic diversities where the language education is required.

Therefore SSA Orissa has innovated two programmes called Rupantar and Srujan in addition to MLE where the school community linkage can be established through locak efforts where the school will be culturally responsive to the children and irrespective of tribal and nontribal every child will have the ability to perform better in combining the informal learning with formal learning and gradually bridge the gap.

III

Contextualizing   schools    through Multilingual Education : some conceptual framework 

MLE GOALS 1. Ensure equity and quality education to tribal children to explore the world around them and use their resources meaningfully for their livelihood. 2. Empower the tribal children with reading and writing skills to acquire knowledge and information in their mother tongue as well as in state/ national and international language 3. Develop socio-economic status in comparison to others through literacy. 4. Develop self-respect in/for their language and culture and enrich human knowledge. 5. National integration is not threatened.

Why Multilingual Education: 

• Many states of India have uniform curriculum and text books which is not suitable for all tribal children whose home language is different from the school language. • Denying children from their mother tongue education lead to serious intellectual damage which block the learning of the children • Research has shown that children do better when they are taught in their mother tongue.(Thomas and Collier).Children competent in mother tongue can do better in other tongues. MLE is to initiate literacy in first language and then integrate the second language ( state /official language)and third language( English or National language ). • It is essential to sustain cultural and linguistic diversities to promote human knowledge which is a part of intellectual property. Culture and language should be the foundation of education especially in ethnic minority and linguistic minority communities to make education context specific. • Multilingual education is a reality and it is a resource. Research says that the mental development of multilingual children is better than the monolingual children.

 What is Multi-Lingual Education?

Multi-lingual education is a programme of learning through mother tongue where the children explore their experiential knowledge, supported by the community knowledge to provide learning from their own cultural context, and then to connect their knowledge with new knowledge of the wider world. The principles for the adoption of MLE depends on: • a strong educational foundation in the first language • successful bridging to one or more additional languages • enabling the use of both/all languages for life-long learning. The purpose of a multi-lingual education programme is to develop appropriate cognitive and reasoning skills enabling children to operate equally in their native, state and national languages, starting in mother tongue with transition to second (Oriya) and third languages (English). The curriculum is based in the culture of the local community, using local knowledge and customs through which a child can develop common concepts in all areas of learning.

National Curriculum Framework 2005 NCF 2005 envisages for language education and has mentioned that 1.Language teaching needs to be multilingual not only in terms of the number of languages offered to children but also in terms of evolving strategies that would use the multilingual classroom as a resource. 2. Home language/mother tongue of children should be the medium of learning in the schools. 3. Second language acquisition through basic proficiency and development of language as an instrument for abstract thought and knowledge acquisition through literacy. 4. The aim of English teaching is the creation of multilinguals that can enrich all our languages; this has been an abiding national vision. English needs to finds its place along with other Indian languages in different states... 5. Learning to Read and write

The authentic place of mother tongue in educational domain is not meant to be subtractive but additive which fosters healthy multilingualism and ensures growth of all languages.

Contextualizing the schools for tribal children :

1. Initial Language Education Plan

Orissa   Child   census 2005 Data: While collecting data  in   OCC  -2005  total 17 tribal languages were identified  that cover the majority of tribal  language speakers.  These are Santali, Munda, Oram, Kishan, Koya, Kui, Kuwi   and Saora.

2. Linguistic Survey and Mapping: Survey on endangered languages like Bonda, Juang, etc. and survey in 25 Blocks with high tribal population revealed that though the parents are partially exposed to state language , school children in those areas are not exposed to school language .Based on the above information, schools were identified with 100 % tribal children with diversities of languages in schools.

Orissa Initiative on MLE Planning:

In October 2005, Govt. of India, NCERT, CIIL and UNESCO   conducted a National   Seminar   in Mysore   on Multilingual Education in which many states took part in it .Based on that Orissa took up MLE in April 2006 as a model for equitable quality education.  
 

In July 2006 State Tribal Advisory Committee(TAC) headed by the Chief Minister , Orissa decided to adopt ten tribal languages as the medium of instruction and introduce them in the schools with 100 % tribal children with their distinct language situation.

The TAC decided to adopt ten languages for multilingual education .The languages adopted are Santali, Saura, Koya, Kui,Kuvi,Kishan, Oram, Munda as major languages. Juang and Bonda were adopted in MLE as endangered languages.

Criteria of selection of Schools:

Schools were selected based on the following criteria: 1. Where the gap of home language and school language is high 2. Number of tribal children in the school belongs to 100 % monolingual 3. At least it should be a primary school with five classes and five teachers 4. At least one teacher from mother tongue to teach in tribal language

Selection and placement of teachers: All the teachers in eight languages have been engaged from the existing teachers posts. But in Binda and Juang where the rgular teachers in those languages are not available , educational volunteers from these two tribes have been ` engaged by the VECs and Collectors.

District MLE Steering Committee chaired by the Collector along with education officers and public representatives approve the feasible MLE schools.

Status of Pilot Schools Till date total 435 schools have been adopted in MLE approach out of which 100 are Santali in Mayurbhanj. Rests of the languages are one year ahead of Santali since Santali language was introduced in 2008-09. DIET Baripada has been assigned to prepare Class II materials in Santali language.

District Language NO of schools in 2007-08 Class I No of schools in 2008-09 Class I No of school in 2008-09 class II Gajapati Saura 20 20 20 keonjhar Juang 10 10 10 Mayurbhanj Munda 10 10 10 Santali - 100 Malkangiri Bonda 5 20 5 Koya 20 20 20 Sambalpur Kishan 19 17 19 Sundargarh Oram 20 20 20 Munda 10 10 10 Rayagada Saura 4 10 4 Kuwi 20 20 20 Kandhmal Kui 20 20 20 Total 158 277 158

Quality Focus in MLE : The standard for effective teaching practice , the non negotiable are, 1.It is jointly produced by the teachers and the students 2.develop competence in language and literacy across the curriculum 3.Connect teaching and curriculum with experience and skill of children’s home and community thereby making the learning meaningful for children 4Teaching complex thinking : challenge students towards cognitive complexity 5.Engage students through dialogue or instructional conversation.

Based on the above   guiding principles, MLE in Orissa   has emphasized the  effective teaching practice in the  schools  for a transformation in the classrooms.

Preparation of Curriculum, Text books and Teacher Training Module:

Thematic Approach in curriculum design:

1. First language first ( MT of the child as medium of instruction) 2. Language teaching is additive not subtractive 3. Second language (Oriya) in Class II and third language ( English ) in Class III 4. Math as a subject to be taught in primary stage up to class III( V ?) 5. Linking experience of the child with the curricular texts- cultural themes to curricular themes 6. With regard to teaching methods, the NCF recommends a constructivist approach and a departure from reliance on the textbook 7. Tapping community knowledge for preparation of curriculum and instructional materials 8.Teachers from tribal community to collect cultural materials, prepare the cultural themes making meaning with the community resource persons, prepare the curricular materials 9. Teachers from the tribal community as the resource persons to prepare Curriculum in their language representing their culture, prepare text books , and teacher training module 10. The NCF (NCERT, 2005) encourages the use of an integrated Curriculum in the early years and themes were chosen from seasonal events, daily activities and local environmental characteristics, all of which are familiar to the child and incorporate local skills and knowledge.

BICS and CALPS  :

The two track method BICS ( Basic interpersonal communication skill) and CALPS ( Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency Skill) were taken in preparation of curricular themes /text books ( alphabet chart, alphabet book, number chart, number book, for CALPS and Big Book, Small Book, listening story , story chart etc. for BICS). Community knowledge as the curricular knowledge : The community resources are the foundation of the curricular knowledge in Class -I and Class- II.Community have shared their local knowledge and participated in making meaning of the texts .The community members also verified the text books and reading materials that were prepared for their children.

The classroom management   scheme is  made based on the    weekly theme web  and  thus weekly   lesson plan is prepared and this   is again  made daily lesson plan. The daily lesson plan has two track . Track I  is to  teach    language, mathematics   and writing new  letters  and words  ( CALPS) .Thereafter the   teacher  student communication skill is  used through biog books, small books, listening  stories  and experience stories. Cultural mathematics is used  as number story, number games  etc, EVS is taught   as a subject  through exploring the  environment   out side the classroom, and then  the children tell  their experience , write  them  and  read them. This helps them in connecting  the experience with the  new knowledge.

The most important   component in MLE is that the   cultural themes are selected by the

Community teachers. The purpose is to connect the experience of the child with the classroom themes.

Inside -out and outside-in:

Teacher teach the children with new knowledge of the text books and children’s knowledge and experience on the theme is not explored. This really ignores the potential of the children. Teachers down pour knowledge ( in side out ) and children’s learning experience from life is not released through inside -out. Outside- in is a one way of imparting knowledge to the children which is only generated by the teachers but children’s participation is neglected. This is teacher centric. In Orissa situation the teaching is still teacher centric. Free dialogue between the teachers and the students have not yet been established through which the teachers could explore the children’s potentialities or the children themselves would face the challenges of learning by applying it critically.

The whole calendar year is distributed in to thirty weeks. Each week represent one theme based on the seasonal themes. This helps the children to connect the experience of the season with the curricular themes while learning.( eg. Cultural theme Rainy season: text : Rain)Thirty week theme web is administered in a calendar year in the MLE school. Each week contains a set of books for the children to read. Thus there are more than 90 books in class-I and 90 Books in class II. In addition to this listening stories, experience stories and story chart are used by the children for innovative self reading.

For class II Oriya was introduced as second language and therefore second language acquisition skill was adopted as the bridging strategies for language education.For this materials like word web, alphabet book , Big Book and small Book in Oriya ( both in MT and L2 ) were prepared. The content from the MT is transferred to the second language to establish that if the content is known to the child the language can be achieved, and if the language is known content can be understood.

Teacher training Module was  also prepared based  on the  basic theories   and methods of MLE .This   include curricular  content  and process of teaching  and  learning ,  subject areas,  importance of  use of TLM , reading and writing process,  children self learning activities, classroom transaction, weekly theme web, weekly lesson plan  and  daily lesson plan  and   inbuilt evaluation  process.

To monitor the MLE schools monthly resource day is conducted in the Blocks where MLE teachers take part and share their teaching experience.

The best practice that was developed in MLE Orissa was that teachers from the tribal communities were engaged in curriculum design, material production and preparation of teacher training module and also in teaching practice.

Transition plan from Mother tongue to Second language acquisition: Language and content Pre-school 1* 1st Grade 2nd Grade 3rd Grade 4th Grade 5th Grade MT LANGUAGE LEARNING Language Oral MT Language in MT Language in MT Language in MT MT as subject MT as subject MATHS Number MT Math in MT Math in MT Math in MT Math in L2 Math L2 CURRICULUM CONTENT EVS I&II Environmental Studies In MT Environmental Studies In MT Environmental Studies In MT Environmental Studies In MT Environmental Studies In MT/L2 Environmental Studies In L2 SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING Oriya Oral 2rd lang+ written Reading and writing L2(Oriya) Reading and writing in L2 Developing fluency in L2 Language in L2 THIRD LANGUAGE LEARNING English Oral L3 (80 %) +written L3 (20 %) Oral L3+ written L3 Reading writing and comprehension in L3 (* ECCE language education has not yet been started in MLE)

MT: Mother tongue, L1: first language L2 ( Second language: Oriya) L3 (English)

Training of teachers of Pilot MLE Schools:

It is widely acknowledged that good teachers are important to good education. Most countries have established teacher-training institutions to supply teachers to their schools. However these institutions are normally structured to prepare teachers to teach only in a/the language of wider communication. Multilingual Education or mother tongue based education is adopted, but   it is hard to get resource institutions who can deliver the goods based on the principles of language education. Therefore, teachers and DIET lecturers were trained as master Trainers on MLE in the curriculum development and material development programmes.

A fifteen days teacher training   programme is prepared for class I   and   another 15 days training programme for class II teachers by the state MLE resource group. The   training module is sound in terms of spelling out the basic principles   of MLE theory   and practice. Medium of training is also in tribal  language so that the  teachers   also will  have the confidence that   training can also be imparted  in their languages. This also  give them voice  to express 

Monitoring and Assessment of MLE Schools:

Monthly resource day meeting is held in   the Block involving the pilot MLE   teachers to discuss on the effectiveness of teaching- learning process of the children.  Detail documentation of teachers experience and reflection of classroom transaction   on children’s performance are captured. This helps improving the teaching and learning process. Children’s weekly writing is captured in each week and finally the gradual improvement of writing is assessed. Reading and fluency is also assessed through Big Book and self reading of children by small books. Children’s creativity is measured through experience story, and fluency  by telling the stories. This helps the children to  express their  creative ability  than  appearing  an fearful examination.

A monitoring team is constituted at the district /Block/CRCC level to assess the day to day schooling of MLE pilot schools. The BRCC and CRCC are oriented on how to monitor and assess the classroom transaction effectively so that the children can learn meaningfully. Besides, reading and writing, fluency of children, exposure of children in discussion and dialogue with the peer group, updating weekly writing files, and reading of Big Book and small Book are monitored.

 Success   of MLE 

Children got back their voices to speak in their language. This is the great recognition to the children’s learning .Very less dropouts and more fluency in speaking and reading. Students are not afraid of the classroom and school. They spend more time in school than ever before.

Class room and children:

Children find their classroom with many known pictures, materials, and words, numbers and stories painted in the classroom walls. They read the walls and read the words and its Oriya words and learn new languages by using alphabet chart. Alphabet book, number chart and number book. Daily lesson plan is flexible and instead of distributing the time to forty minutes per a subject, it has been divided in to two track system where from 10.30 to 12.00 AM the child learn new academic knowledge like writing alphabets, words, and learn arithmetic for correctness and accuracy. This time also is divided in to small units for writing, reading letters and words and sentences, counting number and writing numbers and so on. then from 12.00.AMTo 4. PM the interpersonal communicative skills are given through language teaching using big book, small book, number story, cultural mathematics, nature study outside the classrooms, and storytelling and games. Moral education and health education is also inbuilt in the daily lesson plan.

Progression from first language to second language during Class I and Class II :

Stage - I Building confidence in mother tongue- fluency in speaking Pre reading and writing skill in mother tongue Pre-math skills Stage II Begin reading and writing in mother tongue Stage- II Begin reading and writing in mother tongue

Understanding the meaning Continue oral mother tongue Develop writing skill and associate sound and symbols Stage- III Continue to develop writing, reading, speaking in mother tongue Introduction of Oral Oriya Transfer of writing skill from mother tongue to Oriya language Oriya script to L2

2. Teachers: Teachers find a well designed model for teaching which helps them to  follow the process than   adopting traditional  method. Teachers   in MLE schools including the resource   persons have found the model very much useful for a child centered learning. They find the result of reading and writing process very much useful for the children to show the achievement. Children are able to read the letters from the sentences and    count the identical letters. Besides they read the whole sentence with understanding the meaning   of the   text. They also   correlate the story with their life experience and tell their peers. Mother tongue has helped the children to understand the content. IN the first  two year so f the   learning  , children from Class I and class  II have been able to read  and write with  meaning  and able to  identify  the  letters from the sentence  is a major  breakthrough in the language teaching  in  MLE schools. As a whole teachers revealed their teaching interesting and meaningful for the children. They revealed their own potentials as a teacher to perform meaningfully   while   teaching. They found how child centered teaching makes the teachers child centered teachers.

Community linkage with curriculum and schooling:

While preparing the curriculum, the community took part in sharing their knowledge on the seasonal and cultural themes which ultimately used as the curricular theme. Teachers from the same community shared the instructional materials which was recognition to the knowledge of the community. The elders of the community expressed their wisdom on putting more themes like medicine and ornaments. They also came to school to see how their stories and themes are taught in the classrooms. This was a major transformation among the tribal communities who saw that their knowledge is used in the schools. The stories and songs of the text were discussed in the family and villages. Women and grandparents also enjoyed in discussing the texts which is close to their mind and heart. People are more close to the schooling than ever before. Community response on MLE schools is that their children are now more interested in classroom than ever before. They feel that their children are now regular inschool and there is hardly any dropouts.

Effect on other children of other class:  While  children  of class I were  taught in mother tongue on MLE approach ,  children  taught  in other classes   were  fascinated to  their mother tongue education. They   used the   Big Book and  Small Book  for reading. They   were also interested to  learn  in their mother tongue. Attention of elder   students to their younger children was  felt  in  those schools.elder children also  sing the song ans tell the story from the  text books of MLE.

Response of the Resource Persons : Resource persons feel empowered through the theories and methods of MLE approach which is highly child centric , contextual, and result oriented. That knew about the methods of reading, writing , and the skill of preparation of curriculum and instructional materials , and write training modules adopting multiple strategies. This is a major shift from the uniform monolingual paradigm to bilingual and multilingual paradigm.

MLE is adopted in 435 schools out of 19345 schools with linguistic diversities. But in other schools multiple strategies have been adopted. One of these programme is Srujan( Creativity )

Srujan is a cluster approach to education in Orissa to provide the children with their creativity expression through community knowledge. The whole concept of Srujan is derived from the experience gained during the DPEP intervention in Orissa and also some ideas from the NCF 2005 to explore the “inside out” of the children and the community to strengthen the school with local knowledge. The result found is highly encouraging in terms of children and community participated in story telling festivals. Games and art and craft.etc.

The broad objective of SRUJAN is to connect the community y knowledge with the school knowledge and to explore local knowledge from the community and make suitable texts for the children. Knowledge in the family and society is intergenerational. This is the best way to teach the children through their parents and to ensure that parents knowledge is also equally important in terms of strengthening the curricular knowledge.Srijan is also means to create a space where the cultural diversities are well addressed through representing their language , culture and knowledge of all children , all community and teachers .

Recognizing the rich knowledge of the story tellers, village artisans and musicians, SRUJAN provide a space for those people and to establish that village is the source of knowledge. From Gandhian Point of view the village language, oral literature, village geography , village history and village science are the knowledge that strengthen the children’s cognitive development. Boradly Srujan represent the folliwng areas of knowledge and creativity of othe children from the context.The rich space and resources that isavailable to the children are unexplored in schools and thus Srujan is a major breakthrough to connect the knowledge out side the schools with the curricular knowledge reducing the boundary of literate school and nonliterate community.

The activities that is adopted in Srujan are 

Child Friendly activities: 1. Story telling festival,2. Traditional games,3. Art and craft, 4. Music and dance, 5.Nature book (observing the nature around us ) and cultural mathematics( number story and riddles songs etc.)

2. Community as the provider of Knowledge:

Srujan provides training to the   PRIs and conduct jati Mahasabha .The traditional tribal leaders as well as the Panchyati Raj members take part in all these activities and provide support to the school activities that ensures the local culture in school education

3.School in Srujan : Teachers as the facilitators and managers of SRUJAN finally get a lot of language/material resources to prepare bilingual TLM for bridging the language gap and document children’s folklore in schools and CRCCs.

The best local knowledge has been documented by the children from the community members which are the rich curricular resources for multilingual education as well as rethinking teacher training from the contextual point of view. Till now the CRCCs have been able to document more than 30000 folktales from the community written down by the children in the story telling festivals followed by a picture drawn by the children on the story they have listened.

Reflection: Children got their freedom of speaking through stories, games, art and craft etc. Community members actively took part in storytelling and sharing their knowledge with the school children and teachers. Story tellers and senior persons of the village got recognition as a resource persons. These activities create a new dimension of knowledge of the children in context and community as the provider of knowledge and teachers as explorers of language, literature, cultural mathematics, natural and social science , village history and geography from the villages.

According to Gandhi,

Give the villagers village arithmetic, village geography, village history and the literary knowledge that they must use daily, i.e. reading and writing letters, etc. They will treasure such knowledge and pass on to the other stages. They have no use for books which give them nothing of daily life. (Mahatma Gandhi, in Harijan 22-6, p 173.

Now school as a place where community is isolated from the intellectual work of the children. But the activities of Srujan has provided a space to t he teachers to rethink on child centered learning. Discovering Gandhi’s vision Srujan is a complete action to translate the ideas that is imagined in Gandhi to NCF 2005.This contextualize the school and the village in to a unit where the children, community and the teachers play their respective roles. The resources shared and gathered are meaningful in terms of its rich intergenerational knowledge which was incubated in the social memory. Children get a context for her learning where community and teachers both support the children to explore the creative potential of the child.

Srujan promotes cooperative and shared learning activities and discourage individual reward. It rather tries to explore the individual potentials based on their individual talent like music, art, storytelling and games etc.It revealed a new areas of knowledge for the children to see and understand the world around them and to get meaning out of it. Understanding the eco-cultural environment both by the teachers and the children is education in context and this context is given to them by the nature and society. Thus learning has purpose which connects the life of the children and it has meaning with context to use the learning in the life.

Srujan led to documentation of a community resource centers where the language resources are stored and disseminated among the children to read, teachers to prepare language learning materials and community to share from oral to written and recognize their contribution. This also lead to a local world view of Indian villages independent to each other in viewing their own knowledge system perpetuated even after the schooling system has ignored it. Thus Srujan connect the children with the knowledge outside the school and contextualize the school with local knowledge and lead to universal knowledge. Schools become responsive to all children and a multi cultural and multilingual resources from the invisible social memory to visible written knowledge is made possible. It is also a state of community non authorship to written authorship leading from oral knowledge to written knowledge across the time.

TEACHERS AS CULTURAL WORKERS:

The next important programme is teachers training programme taken up in tribal areas. The name of the programme is Rupantar.

What is RUPANTAR?

Rupantar means transformation. Rupantar is a comprehensive teacher training programme to help bring a transformation in the mind of the teachers serving in tribal areas, so that increased responsibility results for tribal children and tribal area schools. The initiation was witnessed with a lot of questions , but in the course of time, teachers of tribal areas started rethinking their role in the classroom and in the society in the context of tribal education. Language played a major role in understanding the education of tribal children and their connection to society. Prior to the training a teacher was asking “what shall I do? The tribal children don’t understand my language.” But the after effect of the training was meaningful when a teacher said, “What shall I do if I don’t understand the language of the children?”

With regard to teacher training, the attitude of teachers towards tribal children, their culture, text books, transactional methods, curriculums etc, have to be first understood. Wherever a particular attitude comes in the way of healthy development of the mind and fosters negative thinking it has to be removed. Therefore the aim of Attitudinal Training (AT) is to question the underlying values and belief systems, which determine behaviors and removes from the mind those beliefs and assumptions which are contrary to healthy thinking.

Though Teachers Training is useful in making the teachers aware of newer and better methods of making learning more meaningful and enjoyable, it does not address many more crucial issues. There is little attempt to help the teachers understand the cultural worldview and psychology of tribal children and to study the world through their eyes. No emphasis is laid on making the teacher’s sensitive to the socio-cultural milieu of tribal children and understands their emotions and sentiments. The psychological factors leading to fear and apprehensions in the minds of tribal children, failures in class, the increasing rate of dropouts and consistent poor performance is often neglected. Also, the ethnic stereotypes of teachers towards the tribal society, tribal children and tribal culture have not been broken through to develop a healthy educational milieu.

However a closer look at all these problems reveals that a teacher plays a major role in the life of the child. The reasons for failure or better performance can be attributed to the role played by a teacher inside the classroom. The positive attitude of teachers toward children will go a long way in creating an environment of mutual love, cooperation and trust, thereby encouraging children to come to school regularly and also to perform better.

Attitudinal Training (AT) therefore aims at making the teachers rethink their traditional teaching practices and styles, question their personal beliefs and assumptions which they initially took for granted, remove some of these prejudices and think of ways of making themselves more endearing to the tribal children and their culture. This automatically reflects in enrolment, retention and greater achievement.

OBJECTIVES OF ATTITUDINAL TRAINING

• Identification and sensitization of teachers on attitudinal issues and to develop training strategies based on the need of the children • To assess the attitude of teachers towards tribal children as learners and also as a cultural group. The attitudinal training topics are language, culture, children, and parents, teaching methods. • Identify the current social bias, which stands against tribal education and its reflection in the textbook and transactional strategies. • Examine the beliefs, assumptions and stereotypes of the teachers about tribal children and their culture • To acknowledge that it is not the tribal child, rather the school and the class room transactions are non responsive in the growth of the tribal children and their learning outcomes. • To tune the school and the teacher towards identifying the potentials of tribal children so as to know how the tribal children learn in their social atmosphere. • To understand and make use of the tribal language, culture, and customs in the learning processes of the children. • Identify strategies to link the language resources of tribal children with the medium of instruction at school and to know the process in which a child learns language. • Develop basic approaches towards language, arithmetic, EVS, using the knowledge base from the natural and cultural environment of tribal children. • To make use of tribal folklore in the learning process to make the classroom contextualized (in language, EVS and arithmetic). • Identify the concepts, skills, information, and attitudes required by the teachers to understand and make the school suitable to tribal children.

In Orissa more than  40000  teachers have been oriented on this training  and this has been the initiation of thinking and acting  upon tribal education in the state.

Conclusion: Tribal Education is Orissa has witnessed many success and failures. The reason is that education of tribal children in their context is a new area of intervention. Like any other new programme, un less it is witnessed, experimented and validated with the desired results, the mainstream culture never approves it. But once the good result is shown many people adopt it. However education of tribal children advocated by the tribal or nontribal practitioners had to go through a ‘loving struggle’ to establish that they also have wisdom to discover the truth from the life and making meaning from the local to feel the global from the land that they survive.