Redefining Primary Education for First Generation Tribal Children in Odisha
Kashipur, India — Imagine yourself in a class where you can’t comprehend anything, let alone read or write. You are not alone. A majority of your classmates are in a similar situation as you. Some of you have textbooks, while the others don’t even have that luxury. Your teacher drones on in a language that you don’t speak or understand. You speak a different dialect at home. Today, you are presented with unfamiliar texts and are expected to make sense of it. Next year, you will start learning other subjects, which will be way beyond your comprehension levels.
Unfortunately, this is a typical scenario in classrooms across various schools in Odisha, where first generation school goers from diverse tribal communities are exposed to text and teaching in the state language, Odiya. A language that majority of the students don’t understand, let alone speak or read. The problem is compounded, as these first generation school goers receive little or no support for learning, either in the classroom or at home.
According to ‘Status of Elementary and Secondary Education in Odisha 2015–16’, Rayagada and Koraput districts have the highest primary student dropout rate; 10.50 and 10.28 respectively. Seeking to help more tribal children learn to read in a fun and creative way, Agragamee with the support of READ Alliance and United States Agency for International Development (USAID), is running the Creative Language Development Effort (CLDE) program in 18 Government Primary schools across three districts of Odisha; Rayagada, Nabrangpur, and Koraput.
This program is being run through local youth who work as “Shiksha Sathies” or Support Teachers. These Shiksha Sathies are motivated youth from the community, and are either 10th or 12th class pass-outs. These support teachers are assigned one government school (out of the 18 schools selected under this project) each, where they facilitate teaching by working side-by-side with regular teachers and school staff.
Before sending these ‘Shiksha Sathies’ to the schools, they are trained at the Agragamee school on the basics of multi-lingual teaching, whole language approach, program methodology, and specific teaching strategies to be used in a linguistically diverse classroom. Subsequent regular teacher training workshops are conducted to refresh all that was learnt, share field insights, brainstorm and ideate around challenges faced in the classroom.
These Shiksha Sathies believe that the key to creating an engaging and productive classroom is “making certain that each student feels that he or she belongs to the class and has something important to contribute.” To build positive bonds within the classroom, Ishwar Majhi, a Shiksha Sathie, and his students work together to translate poems and rhymes written in the local tribal language, Kui to Odiya, language of classroom instruction.
Dharam Singh, another Shiksha Sathie helps his students’ express themselves by writing stories that are self-portraits reflecting their own individual styles, personalities, and cultural backgrounds. Through this activity Dharam and his students write and read texts that are personally meaningful to them. Students write short stories about themselves in response to several questions (e.g., Why do you want to study? Which subject do you like the most? What is your favorite story and why?), illustrate their texts, and put up these stories on the ‘School Magazine Wall’.
Although these activities are not part of the school’s official language curriculum, Agragamee Shiksha Sathies believe they are essential for successful literacy learning. Shiksha Sathie’s instructional strategies complement their efforts to build relationships with their students. They use repetition extensively, for example, whenever any new text is introduced, these Shiksha Sathies read numerous stories with repetitive patterns, using the predictability of the language to elicit student participation and to draw their attention to syntactical features of Odiya language.
The uniqueness of this program lies in the fact that these Shiksha Sathies are educated youth from the communities and tribes where this intervention is being run. This not only facilitates learning by overcoming the language barriers, but also, makes it very easy for Shiksha Sathies to connect to students and teach them using local context examples.
“I use folk songs and local nursery rhymes, so that the kids in my class connect with what I am teaching. Because the context is very natural for them, these students have fun while reading, can associate with words, and make sense out of sentences, stories. Kids especially like the flash card method, where a series of cards with illustrations are shown to them and they have to weave a story around it. Children have such vivid imagination and always astound me with the kind of stories they come up with”, says a proud Dharam Singh.
“Our Dharam sir tells us interesting stories, like the Snake and Mongoose story. He also teaches us many songs like ‘Sango he Chalo Bano Ku Jeeba’ (Come friends let us go to the jungle)”, shares Dipu Majhi, a quiet boy studying in grade 3 in Jhiriguma Upper Primary School, Kashipur, Odisha.
The CLDE program is changing how education happens in these tribal schools. Teaching is taken up through a child centered approach, and is built on the basic language skills of the child. An exhaustive activity guide is provided to the Shiksha Sathies to plan out classes and days along with the teachers. They are also armed with interactive Teaching Learning Materials (TLMs) including rhyme and song books, picture and word cards, and children workbooks. Regular training workshops ensure that Shiksha Sathies are well-equipped to support the school teachers.
Another integral part of the CLDE program has been the development of content that is relevant to the local context of various tribes in the three intervention districts. Agragamee along with READ Alliance and USAID have developed an interactive book in Odiya called, ‘Kau dake ka’. The content of this book was developed in a very participatory and inclusive manner; and both children and teachers are involved in the process of content development.
“We have taken into consideration things like; what children like to read, what do they react positively to, what characters do they like; stories are built around those characters in order to make content most interesting for the children. ‘Kau Dake Ka’ has helped children become familiar and comfortable with books, notebooks, holding a pencil or pen, drawing pictures on their slates/notebooks, and comprehending meaning of stories/nursery rhymes. All teaching is peppered with action songs and games, which the Shiksha Sathies are taught during their training workshops”, shares Vidhya Das, Co-founder, Agragamee.
“Shiksha Sathies have helped children learn much quicker than normal. Shiksha Sathies go a step further and take up the onus of community awareness through regular interactions with parents, especially mothers, around their child’s learning journey. We have observed a very positive change in children, their attitude, they are much more confident to face outsiders; they will come and sit around strangers, strike conversations, and answer questions confidently. We see our classrooms crowded now, proudly shares Vidhya.
Agragamee began the CLDE program in July 2016 across 18 government schools in three districts of Odisha. With READ Alliance and USAID’s support, Agragamee has been able to showcase the positive impact this program has had on the learning outcomes of first-generation tribal learners. The aim is to reach out to 4000 children in this period of 2 years.
“A longer period of support, and an increased number of schools could provide the space to document and show case this program at different levels, network with different support groups and develop the process further to consolidate and take forward the gains of this initial effort”, shares Vidhya.
If you wish to join the movement to bring about a change in rural India, you can send a mail to readalliance@cks.in
