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.