Tribal situation in Orissa

 There are 62 tribal groups in Orissa.

 They constitute 23% of the total state population
 32 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.
Tribal Languages and Major Tribes
I. 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)

II. Major /Primitive Tribes in Orissa

Major Tribes (Population in Lakhs):

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)Bhumij(1.78)
Oroan(2.57),Bhuiyan(2.46)Bhatada(3.00)Ho (0.50)

These tribes have their own language.

Primitive Tribes: Gadaba,Bonda, Choktia-Bhunjia, Kutia, Dongria
Kondh, Lanjia Saora,Paudi Bhuiyan, Lodha, Didayi, Juang,Saora
Community Participation : Some Basic Issues
• Most of the tribal parents are non-literate and poor.

• Education directly affect their day to day income by drawing their

children from home.

• Poor relationship between school and community

• Tribal community have mixed opinion regarding using tribal

language in primary schools.

• Educated tribal oppose using tribal language in classroom

• Teachers in tribal areas do not involve the community in schooling

process

• The experience of the tribal community, which is the best source to

construct knowledge on tribal curriculum, is not utilized.
Bilingual Teaching 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 on bi-lingual teaching method

• Tribal children are the source of mediating mother tongue with textbook
language

• Learning is a mutual process among teachers and children, a teacher

should ready to learn their mother tongue from the children, but non-tribal
teachers don’t take interest in bilingual education
Enrollment Figures of ST Children in Orissa

ST Children Primary (6-11)

Categories Boys Girls Total

Primary (6-11) 645446 548212 11,93,658

Upper Primary (11-14) 98488 65303 1,78239

Total (96-14) 743934 613515 13,71,897

Schools with ST Children
Categories of schools with Number of Linguistic situation
% of ST children Schools
100% 3197 monolingual

90-99% 2534 monolingual

89-80% 2190 monolingual in home and bilingual in

class
79-70% 2032 Monolingual in home and bilingual in
schools
69-60 1979 Monolingual in home and bilingual in
schools
59-50% 2087 Monolingual in home and bilingual in
schools
Below 50% 34079 Multilingual

Schools with more than 50% 14019 Multilingual

Class wise enrollment of ST Students (2004-2005)

Class Boys Girls Total

I 187323 172957 360280

II 139915 123647 263562

III 124902 106904 231806

IV 105652 81546 187198

V 87654 63158 150812

VI 52541 34270 86811

VII 45947 30033 75980

Total 13,71,897 747434 624463

Overview of ST Children
• About 748000 Children of class I to lass III face severe language difficulties
in comprehending the content and language.

• 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 unable to

comprehend the texts properly.

• Rote memory followed in the classrooms help them in answering the

questions with out proper comprehension.

• 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.

• Dropout of Tribal children is 77%. And Tribal girls are neglected in

comparison to the boy
Attitude of Teachers : Some Make beliefs

• 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

• Moreover, teaching is not possible in tribal language

Children’s apprehensions in class room
• 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 don’t understand their language

Some Issues and Concerns

• 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. Many believe
that contextually is opposed to integration. There is least
discussion on tribal education in teacher training

• Teachers as well as DI of schools don’t follow that National policy

of Education has provision of mother tongue education in tribal areas
in primary classes. Therefore they don’t promote tribal language in
primary education

• Teachers don’t use tribal primer due to want of official

instructions from their Block education officers
DPEP Interventions
In DPEP,Orissa some concrete steps were taken to address 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 popn)
DPEP Interventions Process I : 1998-
Training of Teachers : 2001
• 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/local knowledge 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
Reflection:
The 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/folklore of the tribal community Need identification
of teachers led to need identification of tribal children by the teachers under
attitudinal training.
DPEP Interventions Process I : 1998-
2001
•Teachers from tribal communities were trained on how to write primers
They were made to know how and why to prepare the primers.
Cultural context of each tribe was the foundation of the text.

• Senior tribal students participated in the content making process actively.

Community participation was encouraging in getting language materials for
primers. (in six languages Saora, Koya, Bonda, Kui, Kuvi and Juang)
DPEP Interventions Process I : 1998-
2001
Preparation of Primers:

• Training was imparted to the teachers on preparation of cultural primer

• Teachers were made to know that village is the first source of knowledge
• Experience of the children is the foundation of constructing knowledge
• Oral tales, songs, folk games, riddles and pictures have learning potentialities
in which children’s experience can be presented as a text
• MT is important since it is the language of thought
• Children see the world in their own language
• Aim of language learning is not to write but to understand it in its context
with meaning
• Non contextual text or using a a language other than MT in the class room
don’t help the children in their cognitive development
• Language helps cognition
•Llearning in MT leads to learn second language effectively
• Children have their own choice in selecting the texts( Likes and dislikes)
• Children create new text given them a context
DPEP Interventions Achievements : 2000 Onwards

• In the year 2000-2002, 63000 tribal children were provided with tribal
primers supported with
•Picture Dictionary,
•Teacher’s Handbook,
• Conversational chart
• Self learning materials for teachers, and
• Language training module for non- tribal teacher
• In 2004-5 academic years about 100,000 tribal children were provided the
same materials.
• Adoption of Cluster approach to tribal education (CATE) in2005-06
DPEP Interventions Process I : 1998-
2001
•Jati 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.

• Results: Hike of 4 % ST and 3% SC enrollment in the Blocks

• Achievements : Enrollment of 13520 ST girls in 396 kanyashrams in KBK Districts.

Reflections
• Participation of tribal children in classroom is active in using MT .

• Children perceive the text from their past experience/own way.

• Children attach new meaning to the text and interpret with their logic

• Children can create new texts from their own cultural context

• Teachers could know that local knowledge is the foundations for the children
in her early education

• Teachers in tribal areas took much interest in addressing tribal children from
their socio-cultural context

• 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
Reflections
• Community interest in teaching Saora, Kuvi and Juang primer was amazing.

• They were taking active part in classroom transaction and were suggesting
the teachers .

• The myth that tribal language and folklore is not important in view of
educating the children in the classroom was broken.

• 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.

• The Santal community want to use their primer in ol-chiki script.

Gaps
• The effectiveness of using these primers is yet to be assessed .

• Post Training activities were poor

• Contextually of effective teaching and learning was missing due to

lack of academic support

• One time training of teachers on tribal issues was not sufficient.

• The experience gathered by the teachers were not given importance

since it was an experiment.

• 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

Gaps
• 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 special attention.

•The Growing interest of teachers could not be continued due to lack of sustained
efforts

•Community were not oriented on use of primers, so there was a mixed reaction
to adopt it.

• DPEP or SSA project have not been institutionalized to replicate and sustain
them in the State system.
 Experiential Learning
At its best

Erai… Erai. Obang..

(Come my friend)
 Prepared and Presented By

Dr. Mahendra Kumar Mishra

mkmfolk@gmail.com