Transportation and escort helped, but tribal areas yet to get back on track

Even as students from cities are gradually bouncing back to their routine following the reopening of schools, the tribal children in the hinterlands of the Nilgiris find it a challenging task and show aversion towards education.

“Out of the 15 tribal students studying from Classes 1 to 10, only one or two were going to school over the past three days from Thenambadi village in Pandalur taluk in Gudalur. Most others simply waste time either playing or accompanying their parents to work. This is the scenario in around 15 remotest tribal villages in the Gudalur region,” said Sobha Madhan, member of Nilgiris District Tribal Development Council, which has been working towards the upliftment of tribals.

This marked aversion to education among students from tribal families has triggered fears among social activists as their long years of hard work in bringing them back to school through creating awareness has been defeated.

“Parents from such remotest villages don’t accord priority to education and prefer their children become an earning member of the family. I haven’t seen any teachers visiting these tribal villages to convince the parents to send their children to school over the last few days. Though there is no specific data, the drop-out rate among tribal students may have increased significantly after the pandemic,” she added.

However, the officials sought to differ by claiming that there has been neither no increase in dropouts nor any gaps found in learning for tribal students. “Students from remote places and studying in government schools in the Nilgiris faced connectivity issues and only 50 per cent of students were able to afford online education. But that gap was set right through the ‘Illam Thedi Kalvi’ scheme,” said T Vijayaraj, Block Resource Teacher Educator, Samagra Shiksha. Further, transportation and escort facility is arranged by Samagra Shiksha for over 5,000 students to come to school from reserve forests and in remote places. “Thanks to this, the dropout has reduced considerably over the years in the district,” he added.