Tribal Education - Survey findings and Suggestions

The National policy on Education for Tribals seeks to bring Scheduled Tribes into the mainstream of society through a multi-pronged approach for their all-round development without disturbing their distinct culture.



There are 67.8 million Scheduled Tribe people, constituting 8.08 per cent of India’s population.  There are 698 Scheduled Tribes spread all over the country barring States and Union Territories like Chandigarh, Delhi, Haryana, Pondicherry and Punjab.  Orissa has the largest number – 68--of Scheduled Tribes. Scheduled Tribes are those which are notified as such by the President of India under Article 342 of the Constitution.  The first notification was issued in 1950.  The President considers characteristics like the tribes’ primitive traits, distinctive culture, shyness with the public at large, geographical isolation and social and economic backwardness before notifying them as a Scheduled Tribe.  Seventy-five of the 698 Scheduled Tribes are identified as Primitive Tribal Groups considering they are more backward than Scheduled Tribes.  They continue to live in a pre-agricultural stage of economy and have very low literacy rates. Their populations are stagnant or even declining. 

   National policy on tribals follow five principles of Nehruvian Panchasheel, spelt out in 1952. They are:

1. Tribals should be allowed to develop according to their own genius.
2. Tribals’ rights in land and forest should be respected.
3. Tribal teams should be trained to undertake administration and development without too many outsiders being inducted.
4. Tribal development should be undertaken without disturbing tribal social and cultural institutions.
5. The index of tribal development should be the quality of their life and not the money spent.

Realising that the Nehruvian Panchasheel was long on generalities and short on specifics, the Government of India formed a Ministry of Tribal Affairs for the first time in October 1999 to accelerate tribal development.  Based on the feedback from tribal leaders, the concerned States, individuals, organisations in the public and the private sectors, and NGOs, the Ministry recognises that a majority of Scheduled Tribes continue to live below the poverty line, have poor literacy rates, suffer from malnutrition and disease and are vulnerable to displacement.   It also acknowledges that Scheduled Tribes in general are repositories of indigenous knowledge and wisdom in certain aspects. By observing alienation from the society, lack of adequate infrastructure like schools, hostels and teachers, abject poverty and apathy towards irrelevant curriculum, National ensures following policies:

1. Tribals are included in the national programme of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan run by the Ministry of Human Resource Development.
2. Schools and hostels are opened in areas where no such facilities exist.
3. At least one model residential school is located in each tribal concentration area.
4. Education is linked with provision of supplementary nutrition.
5. Special incentives like financial assistance, pocket allowance, free distribution of textbooks and school uniforms are provided .
6. Teaching is imparted in tribals’ mother tongue at least up to the primary level. Educated tribal youth are given employment as teachers, wherever possible. (This will obviate the need to employ teachers belonging to far-off places who find commuting is as difficult as staying in a village with no basic amenities.
7. Pedagogy is made relevant so that tribals do not find it as alien.
8. Curriculum and cocurriculum include aspects of meta skill upgradation of tribal children. 
9. Curricula for meta skill upgradation are to include aspects of tribal games and sports, archery, identification of plants of medicinal value, crafts art and culture, folk dance and folk songs, folk paintings etc.
10. Emphasis is laid on vocational/professional education.  Polytechnics are set up for studies in subjects like forestry, horticulture, dairying, veterinary sciences, polytechnics.

To sum up, the policy endorses paradigm shift in primary education for the tribal population. It restricts  enforcement of formal education on the scheduled tribes rather suggests some measures so that they feel inner motivation to the schooling. One of the important social objective of education is to equalize opportunity. It enables the backward or under privilege classes or individuals to use education as a lever for the improvement of their condition. Tripura and Manipur – two north eastern states of India possess literacy 

rates which are above the national average. Again illiteracy and dropout rates among the scheduled tribe students of both states are also very high. This contradiction complicates the issue of understanding about reading and writing motivation of ST students in primary education of both states. On this background, current study aimed at two objectives – (a) to examine pattern of relative preferences to Reading and Writing motives of students in primary education across  different tribal communities of Tripura and Manipur, (b) to explore effect of some situational variables  and student characteristics on  changes in relative preferences to reading and writing motives of students  in primary education across  different tribal communities of Tripura and Manipur. Data were collected through Reading and Writing motivation questionnaire (Dutta Roy, 2003) from scheduled tribe students of Tripura (N=275) and Manipur (N=284) living in different hill districts. Based on the results, following suggestions are made. 

1. Link syllabus of primary education with economic activities or vocational education. Vocational education should be in conformity with suitable family occupation and family culture of hill people. It will help them to understand importance of syllabus.
2. Find out local resource persons with expertise in specific vocational education, train them in teaching students and involve them as resource persons of schools.
3. Avoid lesson contents and pictures which are related to development of urban mind set. This will help to stop migration to urban areas and will help the hills for socio-economic development after formal schooling. As I noticed feeling of alienation to hill cultures among the people trained with formal schooling in hills. Furthermore, it will reduce some unemployment problems in valley areas.
4. Health related issues like major diseases, first aids, safety can be added in the syllabus.
5. School syllabus should give much emphasis on drawing, conversation, dictation, sports, drama etc.
6. Explore rich culture and heritage, folk tales of tribal people and include them in syllabus. It will reduce their tribal identity crisis.
7. In teaching to students, relate knowledge with other knowledge (e.g., relate knowledge of river to the life and later to the socio-economic development of areas) rather knowledge as entity. Most of the schools follow later method of teaching. Again, problem solving method in teaching is not followed. This results lack of development of creativity impulse among the students. So, problem solving method should be introduced in teaching.
8. Schools possess economic dependency on the Government. Lead the schools to explore some possibilities to find out more economic independence using their own resources. They can use their information sharing resources (school exhibits, magazines, library and computers, school sports, drama etc.) for economic independence. For this purpose, area wise school clusters can be formed.

9. Involve the community in various development programmes of schools so that communities can understand that school is an instrument for change in their socio-economic development.