Former Indian Prime Minister, Late Smt. Idira Gandhi has quoted, “Education is a liberating force, and in our age it is also a democratizing force, cutting across the barriers of caste and class, smoothing out inequalities imposed by birth and circumstances”  In her time, she was much more concerned about the needs of education for the development of societies as well as nations. Education  plays a leading role in development, even for  communities also. Our nation India is now a giant growing force of the developing world. But after sixty years of its independence, the nation is still very backward in the universalization of education among all societies. And the scenario is very poor for the tribal societies. One of such a society is Santal,  with a larger total population. Santal is a very liberal, developing and culturally sound tribe of India. But educational awareness and progress among them is very low. This is why they face a lot of problems such as economical, political, social, etc. Hence this paper tries to investigate the present educational status and availability of infrastructure in some tribal schools and regions of Junglemahal of West Bengal. In fact, this may be treated as a report on current educational situation of the tribal schools. Based on some secondary and primary data collected from the headmaster, students and their guardian reports were prepared. However, this region is mostly habituated by tribes. Many types of tribes have habituated this region in the past. Actually, they are primary inhabitants of this region also. West Bengal is a state of India situated in the Eastern part. Most of the tribal population of this state lives in the districts of Purulia, Paschim Medinipur, Bankura, Birbhum, Malda, Uttar Dinajpur, Daskshin Dinajpur, Kochbihar and Jalpaigui. The major tribal communities of this region are Santhal, Bhumij, Munda, Oraon, Lodha, Sabar, Kharia, Gond, Kharyar etc. Among these communities the santhals are more progressive in nature. But after 60 years of independence they are still very backward in education. Education is an important factor for measuring HDI. The santhals are much more progressive in their cultural knowledge and background but they are very poor in education. This paper examines their present education status.

There exists a substantial amount of literature on the condition of tribal education irrespective of the kind and quality of education that they have availed themselves of. Therefore, it places the lower class students at disadvantage vis-a-vis their upper class counterparts in India.

Ambasht (1970) has found that there exists a social distance between teachers and students in tribal schools while non-tribal teachers are typically found to be dissatisfied with the job in regions and also the main-stream designed education system tends to change the way of life of tribe. Sachidanandan (1967) has found that irregularity of attendance and dropout rates among tribes are lower in the accelerated societies. Ratnaiah (1977) has also found the effects of poverty on tribal education. Sujatha (1987) found lack of infrastructures in their schools. Criticizing the governmental policy of introducing tribal language as subject of study in some of the schools, Pattanayak (1981) argued that language as a subject of study is never equivalent to language as a medium of instruction. In her research on Yenadi tribe, Sujatha (1987) found that most of the tribal schools lack basic infrastructural facilities. Pani and Katen (1993) conducted differential study of academic performances in reading achievement and cognitive tasks among tribal students. Sharma (1995) studied the educational attitude of tribal students. The objective was to study their general understanding of educational lifestyles by studying selected modes of educational practices they follow.

Objective of the study

1. To find out the performance level of tribal schools.

2. To look at  the causes behind the differences of performances among the different caste students.

3. To identify  the causes behind the high dropout rate among the students of tribal schools.

4. To find the difference between the dropout rates among the different caste students of and their causes.

5. To recommend changes or improvement of tribal schools.

The method chosen for collecting data from secondary and primary data sources are divided into two steps.

Secondary sources

1. At first the name of the schools or the sample schools were selected from the secondary list collected from the office of the district inspector of school (SE) of Paschim Medinipur District.

2. The secondary data are related to infrastructural bases of the tribal schools from the official website of SSA and from the office of the district inspector of school (SE) of Paschim Medinipur District.

Primary sources

After the preparation of the questionnaires, the schools were surveyed and the primary data were collected from the authorities, tribal students and their guardians or parents.

Study area

The study area is located at the Western most part of the state, West Bengal. However, the area consists of eight GPs of seven different blocks of three districts of Paschim Medinipur of West Bengal. The blocks are: Sadar, Kespur, Garbete-II, Salboni, Kesiary, KGP-II and Debra.

The main topography of the area consists of some dissected residual hills and undulating physiographic features. Actually, the hills are the residual and elongated portion of the Chota Nagpur plateau area and the hills of the area consist of outliers of the same plateau. Geologically, the area is a lateritic region. The parent rock is a mixture of metamorphic rocks of sedimentary origin and igneous rocks, both basic and acidic. The main rivers flowing in the area are Silaboti, Kangasaboti and some local tributaries like Kubai, Tamal, etc. This area is covered predominantly with Sal of coppice origin; on an average, 60% area is covered with Sal and the rest is covered with plantation, scrub jungles and bushes.

The main economic basis of the area is agriculture, bi-culture tri- culture cropping. Population density is quite low. The area is predominantly inhabited by different tribal groups of people. The Santals are one of those tribal groups. Culturally The Santals are very sound. They know the uses of traditional drum (namely Madol and Dhama). They have practiced the traditional dance and singing in their festivals like Sohorai, Karam, Maghe, Sakrat, Baba Bonga, Ero, Disum Sendra and Hul etc.

Types of samples

For this paper 8 tribal schools of Paschim Medinipur District have been chosen. Each of the schools has more than 30% of tribal students (Table 1). 

 

 

Data analysis

After collection of the samples and when the data were tabulated, the following specific characteristics are seen.

Educational profiles

Poor availability of schools in GP

There are many factors by which the educational  infrastructures  of schools of these regions can be discussed. However, here, they are discussed on the basis of two factors as follows.

Poor supply of higher institutions

In all the GPs, there are very few number of higher educational institutions compared to the lower level of institution (Table 2).

 

 

So to get higher study, the students have to migrate outside, which creates a lot of problems to their families. This is because most of these families belong to the BPL level and they generally depend upon subsistence farming or forest for their living. Also they cannot recruit laborer to their field because most of them have no field of their own and they work as agricultural laborers in the field of others. So, the boy students have to help their fathers in the farm as laborers and the girl students have to help their mothers in their domestic duties.  As a result, it is very difficult for them to carry on their education further; they stop midway due to lack of higher educational institutions in their localities. Even it has been found that parents who have one son and one daughter prefer sending the son farther for further learning to sending their daughter, due to lack of girls’ hostels in tribal schools and for security of the girls. And so, their daughters settle in their houses. Furthermore, it has been found that the economic and social backwardness of these families forces their girls to marry very early.

During the survey, the parents of the girl students have argued that it is better to give their daughters out for marriage early than to send them regularly to schools, traveling a long distance. Some of them have also stated that they wish to send their daughters to schools till the end of their basic education but the long distance of the schools creates a lot of tension in them daily, and when the girls reach adolescent age or start menstruating, their parents’ tension grows greater. They also said that they will continue their basic education if sufficient amount of local  schools  will  be  established.

The economic hindrance of their families also influences them to take such a decision. They think that if the girls do not go to school regularly then they will settle at home and help them with their domestic duties. Sometimes, it has been found out that girls stay at home not only to help their mothers with their domestic duties, but also to care for their younger siblings.

It has been found that in some regions like Siromoni, Jafala and Goaldihi, there are no higher secondary schools in the GP area; hence, the students have to go to the neighboring GP; otherwise they have to drop out.

Large feeder area of the schools

When the schools were surveyed, it was found that each school has a very large feeder area. It depicts that the students have to travel a long distance to reach school daily and they also have to face many problems in their path to their schools. During the survey, many students have reported that they have to reach school walking bare feet or without raincoats or umbrellas; hence they are forced to be absent from schools Sometimes they have to cross the river or canal by swimming in the rainy season. As a result, mostly, children and girls cannot reach school. The path becomes very difficult for cycling in the rainy season. The data are given in Table 3.

 

 

From the above, it is clear that the students, especially the girls face a lot of problems to reach school because they are physically weak than the boys. It becomes very worse especially during rainy season because sometimes the journey takes up to ten kilometers and the students have to travel this path walking. This is very risky and painful for them because the paths are full of dense jungle in which they have reported to face wild elephants and snakes; and even sometimes they cannot reach schools because the roads become so muddy and unusable.  

Schools’ profiles

To describe the profile of these schools two simple factors have been chosen as follows.

Performance level of the schools

The Lorenz curve shows the comparative success among the other caste and tribes (Figure 1, Tables 4 and 5). The distribution curve lines showing that the different success rates of students belong to the tribal and other castes show that the curve of the tribal students is more skewed from the line of the other caste students. This is because the number of successful tribal students is very few compared to the total students, but the successful students among the other caste are much more compared the total students.

 

 

 

 

The data of the individual schools are given in Tables 6-13.

 

 

 

 

 

           

 

 

 

It has also been seen that the performance level of the students varies from school to school or area to area:

1. The average success rate of tribal students is about 47.58% while it is 68.70% in case of other caste students.

2. It is very interesting to note that at a very few time the success rate among the tribes reaches to 100%. But it is also very interesting to note that it is only one in that year in Madhyamik.

3. The average success rate among the tribal and other caste students as well as the total of the individual schools has also fluctuates. The success rate among the tribal students of Goaldihi, Telya Vidyasagar Vidyamandir, Khasbarh, Eriamarah, Siromoni high, Jafala and Santrapur schools are respectively 65.67, 65, 35.5, 24.8, 54.25, 34.75, 53.09% and among the other caste students are respectively 81, 80, 58.13, 60.1, 65.5, 68, 68.18%.

High rate of dropout  

The data are given in Tables 14-21. As stated earlier, the data confirm the very ugly condition of dropout rate existing among the students of these schools. The present situation of dropout of these schools is as follows:-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. The average dropout rate among the tribal students is 79.01% and among the other caste students is 61.01% (Tables13,17,18, 19, 14,16,20, 15). This depicts that most of the tribal students cannot sustain their formal education for long.

2. The average dropout rate among the tribal students fluctuates very minimal but it fluctuates a lot in case of other caste (Figures 2a, 2b, 3a,3b, 4a, 4b, 5a, 5b, 6a, 6b, 7a, 7b, 8a, 8b, 9a and 9b).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. The average dropout of the tribal as well as the other caste students for the individual schools also fluctuates very well. The dropout rate among the tribal students of Telya Vidyasagar vidyamandir, Jafala High, Eriamarah High, Santrapur High, Siromoni High, khasbarh High, Jhikuria High, Goaldihi High schools are respectively 86.33, 83.5, 88%, 77.5, 88.25, 79.78, 79.6 and 49.13% and among the other caste students are 60, 73.75, 76.4%, 69.8, 84.75, 75.78, 63.7 and 73.13% (Tables 13, 17, 18, 19, 14, 16, 20,15).

4. It is also very interesting to note that the dropout rate among the tribal students decreases in a fast rate compared to the other caste students (Figures 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b, 4a, 4b, 5a, 5b, 6a, 6b, 7a, 7b, 8a, 8b, 9a and 9b).

Prime findings  

From the above some general assessment has been prepared about the present educational situation of the tribal school in Jungle Mahal Region. These are given as follows:

1. Most of the regions are educationally backward. The infrastructure facilities and their availability are not sufficient to fulfill the educational needs.

2. There are a very few numbers of higher institutions but the lower level is sufficient, and due to the imbalance many of the students especially the girls have to leave their education mid way.

3. The regular attendance of these schools is very poor

4. The dropout rate of these schools is very high and this is worst in case of tribes and especially girls.

5. The success rate of the students of these schools is not so satisfactory and this is very poor in case of tribes.

6. The feeder area of the schools is very large which creates a vast pressure upon the schools and the families of the students also. Most of the parents do not want to send their child daily to such a long distance. They prefer to keep them at home because the economic return ability of those children, especially the girls is much higher than the educational value.

Causes behind underdevelopment

From the above discussion, it is clear that the present educational situation of this area is quite poor which is not only due to the poor infrastructures and facility but also due to some other causes. These causes have been reported by the pupils during the survey period. The causes are as follows.

Teacher’s responsibility for their backwardness

Most of the Santals are shy in nature due to heredity, especially the children and the girls. And the teachers of these schools are not friendly enough or the institutions cannot create a homely environment in which they can feel comfortable. Some of the students have argued that the teachers present rude attitude in the school or the classroom, making them unable to share their problems with them.

Inherent characteristics of tribes

Many times the tribal students suffer from inferiority complex; as a result prefer to sit in last benches and cannot follow the classes properly. But the teachers do not give them equal time or give more attention to the other caste, making their complex to increase day by day.

Most of them are from poor families. As a result, they have to be absent during agricultural season; and the girls are more irregular because they care for their minors. This is why they cannot follow the regular class study and also afraid to ask their teacher to repeat the lesson because they do not guess whether the teacher will do that or not without punishing them.

Linguistic gap between teaching and community

The schools are following the Bengali medium of communication but they follow their mother tongue in their homes. That is why they, especially the children cannot follow the classes properly.

Most of the staffs have been recruited from SSC and come  from  outside  and  whose  mother  tongue  is  also Bengali. This is why they cannot mix with the local sentiment and the needs of the community.

Lack of supply of learning materials

Most of them have no uniforms or have a single one, making them absent from school in the rainy season. Besides the uniforms, they cannot get learning materials like books, pens and pencils, papers from their families and schools.

Vacation of schools not matched with community needs

The school and the education department do not manage the vacation list as per their community needs. The long vacation matches with the needs of the teachers, so they cannot attend school during their festive season or period.

Improper management of sports and games at schools

Most of the schools do not organize any sports or game events in their annual sports. But they said that it will be more pleasurable and interesting for them to perform in those events.

Unavailability of proper toilets and lavatories at schools

Most of the schools have no permanent toilet or lavatory for ladies or they have for only single ladies staff. This is why the girls cannot share their gynic problems freely with the male teachers when the ladies staff is absent from school.

Incentives

It can be concluded that even if the education situation of the area is so backward it could be solved by some real planning and initiative. Some of the initiatives have taken by the government:

1. Formation of Pandit Raghunath Murmu type of school in the locality which is fully residential. One of such has been established in Garbeta-III Block.

2. After the starting of mid-day-meal scheme under the SSA the enrolment of the schools has increased.

3. Offering of uniforms and cycles to the girls.

4. Build up of permanent toilets for all.

Suggestion

Apart from the above, if other initiatives would be taken in future it would be better for them. Suggestions are given as follows:

1. To form more hostels in the schools.

2. To establish more schools in their remote local areas.

3. To include their mother language in the syllabus as a third language.

4. It should be better for the entire system if the full process (teacher and student both) will come under the residential mode of education.

5. To organize more of traditional events in the sports and cultural programs of the schools.

6. The teachers should be more emotional and friendly with the locality. 

The authors have not declared any conflict of interests.