THE SPREAD of education among the weaker sections of our society is vital as education is a prime requisite for socio-economic development. The policy to promote educational interests of the weaker sections of the people, especially the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, has been enshrined in our Constitution as a Directive Principle of State Policy. In the days of yore tribal people had a well-organised system of education. The child learnt at home and at `dormitories' and this training related to various activities of tribal life. But with the advent of Christian missionaries modern schools came up in tribal areas.
Homogeneity is the main characteristic of a tribe; but this characteristic has been dealt a death blow due to the impact of modernity. On the one hand a few privileged people are reaping all the benefits and on the other the vast bulk of tribals is living in poverty and deprivation. Moreover these educated elites, instead of trying to improve the lot of the underprivileged, are ruthlessly exploiting them. This has led to a situation where the majority of the tribals look upon these educated `babus' with distaste and distrust and thus it has evoked a negative attitude towards education. With modern education have come modern values which have clashed with the age-old traditional values of tribal society; this has also led to the tribals being antagonistic to modern education.
Retarding factors
Lack of social mobility and the problem of inter-cultural communication are major retarding factors in tribal education. As the teacher and the taught in the tribal areas belong to different cultures the communication barrier becomes almost inseparable. The late Humayun Kabir had rightly remarked that even the best system of education is bound to fail without an efficient and resourceful teacher. Most of the teachers appointed in tribal areas are a disinterested lot due to various problems faced by them such as lack of proper residential facility, good salary, communication facility and social distance from the tribal people.
Thus the teacher feels isolated and unhappy and a disgruntled teacher is, certainly, not the best communicator of modern ideas and messages to tribal children. So even though the government has come up in recent times with various plans and programmes to improve the educational lot of the tribals, there is not much result to show as there is lack of sincerity on the part of the officials charged with the implementation of these programmes. If all these problems are to be tackled successfully, the government has to bring about a change in the basic orientation in tribal education.
The government in its zeal to provide facilities to the tribals has constructed hostels for the tribal students, supplied textbooks, provided different types of scholarship, etc. But instead of bridging the gap it has widened the rift. The tribal students staying in separate hostels, availing themselves of separate scholarships, feel naturally lonely. This should change and instead there might be some percentage reservation of seats for tribals in a general hostel and tribal students should be encouraged to take an active part in various college as well as hostel activities. Only then they could be brought into the mainstream.
It has also been proved that when a tribal child begins his education he starts with no linguistic information and conceptualisation whereas a non-tribal child starts with a few familiar concepts and linguistic associations. So preschool training programme for the tribal child is a prime requirement and the government should undertake such programmes if it means to put the tribal students on an equal footing with the non-tribal.
As for appointment of teachers, more and more appointments should be made from among the tribal population so that the teachers become `accepted' and they deal with the tribal students by using a more permissive and motivational approach. The existing teachers should be provided with adequate facilities and they should be properly oriented. It should be a must for the teachers to learn the tribal language and there can also be attempts at writing textbooks in tribal languages.
Moreover the education of children has little functional importance to them. Even after secondary education there can be no gainful employment. Thus there is no incentive for education. So the existing curricula should be related to socio-economic and cultural life of the tribals. Emphasis must be on imparting skills and modern information on agriculture, poultry, forestry and carpentry, etc.
Only by providing better communication facilities, sanitary programmes, teaching materials and methods the government can hope to bring about an attitudinal change in the tribal population towards education. Otherwise with the present state of affairs the dream of our Constitution makers about tribal education would always remain a dream.
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