The Tribal Education System and its difficulties

India is a country which is blessed with the uniqueness of land, flora, and fauna along with diverse human civilization. But as it developed, India forgot to take care of the tribal residents. Today more than 40 million tribes require special attention of the government to include them in various sectors. One of such important section is education. The tribals have to depend upon the government for education.

Tribal Education System

The government has always seen as a medium to help tribal people come in contact with the urban and modernized lifestyle. Education is also a tool for them to determine their own prosperity and success as many tribes are still deprived of modern contact. Compared to the average literacy rates of 29.34% for the general population, literacy among tribal peoples in India is just 6%. Both the Union and the state governments are spending financial resources for tribals youth education but the results are not satisfactory. It has observed that unless the exploitation among the tribes is not eliminated through education, it will be difficult for the welfare of tribes. According to the government reports, there is no scarcity of resources that are being used for this purpose. But the facilities and resources offered are not attractive or interesting enough for the tribes to focus on. This raises some questions about the basic implementation of the policies regarding tribal education.

 

Tribal Students and Teachers compatibility

Teachers play an important role in a student’s life. In the case of tribal education, it is seen that often the teachers are from different social and cultural backgrounds. This sometimes makes compatibility difficult between the students and teachers. Also, it has been seen that many times the urban teachers deployed tend to undermine the tribal values, cultures, customs, and behavioural norms. This can have a negative effect on the interest of education among the tribals. It is necessary to train and deeply teachers who can teach with no biases.

School and infrastructural institutions

The schools help to shape the minds of the children who frequent them. The tribal students are not able to blend well with the schools because the school structure tends to be very different from the tribals local environmental conditioning. This can lead to a formation of negative attitudes towards the schools for tribal students. They may start detesting them. Even if they tend to get educated through the schools, these tribal students tend to live a sense of in-between the tribal culture and urban culture due to this.

The Language barrier and instruction method

The tribes tend to have their own local languages. It is possible for few tribal adults to have knowledge of other languages but the tribal children are familiar with their own language only. And when these children enter the schools as students, it becomes immensely difficult to overcome the language barrier- both for the children and the teacher. And even if the teacher tries to teach them the commonly used languages it can be very difficult for them. This affects the learning and teaching of the students. It would beneficial if the tribal children are taught in their tribal languages in the beginning and are taught the common languages side by side. Nowadays attempts are being made to educate Gonds, Bhils, Santals, and other groups in their own mother tongues which have resulted in a good response from the tribals.

Curriculum and Method

The tribal youth tend to have a very historical and socially unique background. But special help is needed to fill the gap between the two different cultures. The curriculum that is taught to them should be made relevant enough that they do not lose interest in it. The teaching methods too should be revised to make them suitable for the tribal youth.

Tribal Youth and their Culture

The tribes tend to frown upon non-tribal people’s interference in their societies. It is important to have educated tribal youth help in this cause. It is necessary to encourage tribal youth to be associated with their tribal roots, culture, and societies. Because if they distance themselves or are alienated by their societies, it will be again difficult to encourage the tribal youth to take upon education and the disassociated youth cannot be of much in helping spread awareness of education in their societies. Along with developing the tribal youth, a genuine effort should be made to keep the youth associated with their own culture.

The tribal students should be educated in such a way that they work and comes to the service of both their tribal societies as well as the nation.