ADILABAD: Tribals in the agency areas are smiling again. The people, who not long were in the news as victims of viral fever epidemic and official neglect - have a reason to be doing so. Their children have taken a measured and firm step toward fulfilment of a long-cherished dream.

Writing a new chapter into their lives, little tribal kids are having fun learning the basics in their own dialect in 80 select schools across the State. Something their elders had longed to, but never could. Recognising the long-felt need for teaching children in their own language, the Andhra Pradesh Government has launched the project covering eight identified tribal groups such as the Gonds and Savaras.

Basic concepts

To begin with, children studying first class were taught basic concepts of learning in the local dialect. The Tribal Cultural Research and Training Institute (TCRTI) of Tribal Welfare Department and District Primary Education Project (DPEP) prepared textbooks for class one in these dialects using Telugu alphabet.

A tour of Adilabad district shows the initiative to be catching the imagination of the Gonds, lords of the area for centuries, and Kolams, a primitive tribal group. That the `learn in your language' concept has clicked well, notwithstanding teething troubles, is evident from Pendur Bapurao's observations. Bapurao, a Gond of Gangapur of Narnoor mandal, says his daughter, Pullabai, is a transformed kid. "Before this (introduction of local dialect), she used to go to school and return home morosely, unable to follow anything. Now, she enthusiastically repeats whatever she learns and even insists on teaching us!," says Bapurao proudly.

Alienation

The project was designed to overcome problems facing primary education such as low literacy and high drop-out rates among tribals. A grim fall-out of teaching in mainstream language was a sense of alienation among tribals who felt their culture, dialect and even identities being systematically eroded. They felt it did not relate to their dialect, culture or local environment in any way.

The TCRTI and the DPEP brought out primers with eye-catching illustrations and colours in Gondi, Koya, Savara, Kolami, Lambada, Konda, Kuvi and Adivasi Oriya languages. The effort involved painstaking research and data collection by experts from Telugu, Osmania and Hyderabad universities, anthropologists of TCRTI and DPEP officials. Music and dance depicting authentic culture of the tribals were recorded and incorporated in the books.

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