Schooled in self-rule

What do tribal children living in Nagarhole National Park in Karnataka learn at school? Take pride in what they are, reports NITIN SETHI

In a small house in the back alleys of H D Kote, Mysore, Karnataka, schoolteachers are being taken to
task. They are presenting quarterly reports on their work to a parents’ association, but the occasion is
almost festive and not acrimonious. This is not the regular parents-teacher meeting in a city school. The
teachers are part of the community-owned and managed education programme of Development
Through Education (deed), a Hunsur-based non-governmental organisation (ngo), which educates
children of tribal communities living inside or near the Nagarhole National Park in H D Kote and Hunsur
divisions of Mysore.

The programme started two-and-a half years ago but has already revolutionised education among tribals in
34 villages. It runs 33 schools, with 2,900 tribal children as students. Till the schools began, tribal children had the highest drop out rate. Last year, 375 of these dropped out children joined the deed schools. “The standard education system is just not meant for tribal children. It alienates them from their ethos,” says deed’s director S Sreekant.

Attend the parents-teacher meet at H D Kote, and one comes to know what is so right about these schools. The teachers report to education committees of Kuruba and Yerava tribal elders in haadis (hamlets). Teachers are hired with the consent of education committees. Government-hired teachers also work in these schools but it’s the community-hired teachers who form the backbone of the process.

From revolution to education

In the early 1990s, deed and Sreekant agitated against relocation of tribal communities from the park during the World-Bank-funded India eco-development projects. This gained them the respect of the tribal communities, and a reputation in the administration for being very vocal advocates of tribal self-rule. “But we soon realised that mere talk about self-rule was not going to bring revolution to our doorstep. To take over governance, tribals had to be educated in a manner that they understood what self-governance would be about. That decision laid the foundation of our programme,” says Sreekant.

As the schools began, deed began to create a curriculum based on tribal lifestyle and ethos. It began work on textbooks that would incorporate their language as well as their context. The forest and life inside it became central to education. “For us, to build a school was not to construct a building. Regular schools forget that there are learning spaces beyond stifling classrooms. We want to make use of all such spaces. For tribals, this means making their hudloos (houses), their haadi and their forest a place of learning for children and their parents to be treated as reservoir of knowledge and not ignorant illiterates,” says Sreekant. Realising that degrees and certificates would not fetch jobs in and around the forests, the students are provided vocational training. Tribals do not want to become literate but cheap daily wage labour. “If children have to leave their house to earn a living after their education, I do not think the education is worth it,” says Nanjundaiah, who helps in the education programme though his Nisarga Foundation, a H D Kote-based ngo.

Singing songs written by their elders, Kuruba children today learn mathematics and science. The idiom is familiar and the metaphors their own, so understanding is easy. Jayaba, an alumnus of a programme school and a co-author of school textbook, understands this well. “Education is not a burden for these children because now it does not tell them that their culture is primitive, instead it instills pride in them,” he says.

“It is such pride that shall make these children demand their rights where ever they go. In higher schools in cities or if they go out for work, they will not forget their context but enrich it,” says Sreekant. It’s early days now, but the programme promises to widen its base. With the government providing some financial support, mid-day meals and scholarships, and the Chennai-based agency Aid et-Action funding them, the partnership deed has forged could create the model for transforming tribal hinterland into a self-governed society. Watch them map their course.