Other States - Orissa   

Steps taken to provide education in tribal dialects

BHUBANESWAR: For nearly seven lakh tribal students of the State pursuing primary education in 11,000 schools, here is a reason to rejoice. The State government has embarked upon an ambitious action plan to provide study materials in their own languages.

Although Orissa has 62 tribal communities - the largest number for any Indian State - constituting one-fourth of the State’s population, Santalis have been the lone tribe to avail from books in their mother-tongue ‘Ol-Chiki’ for their schooling; especially after the language was included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.

“Most of the tribal communities of the State have dialects but no scripts of their own. Thus, the government has evolved a five-year plan to develop study materials for the school students in their languages using Oriya script,” says the Minister for Tribal Welfare C.P. Majhi, also a tribal leader.

At present, books for the students of standard one and two for nine tribal communities are being published under the Sarva Sikshya Abhiyan scheme, he hinted and added that the list includes Bonda, Juanga, Oram, Munda, Kissan, Koya, Kui and Saura tribes. A study conducted by the government has revealed that the major reason behind school drop-outs among tribal communities has been non-availability of books and teachers in their own languages. The initiative to provide teachers and study materials in their own languages has been introduced in 200 schools and it would be doubled by next academic session benefiting about 8,000 primary students, it was learnt.Meanwhile, teachers with expertise in the respective dialects have been posted in these schools to implement the programme. The five-year plan is likely to be extended for three more years beyond 2012 to provide education to the tribals in their own languages.

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