Diwali festival likely to hit Adivasis' education after hostels' reopening
UTNOOR (ADILABAD): A tough time is ahead for teachers and wardens at the government-run tribal welfare ashram-cum-residential schools as far as improving the enrolment of students and bringing the students back to the schools and hostels are concerned. This is in view of the Gussadi- Dandari festival the adivasis celebrate alongside Diwali, it being their main festival.
The tribal welfare hostels and residential schools will resume functioning from tomorrow. These are run by the tribal welfare department and ITDA, Utnoor.
It is reckoned that the student-dropout rate will be higher this time after the reopening of ashram schools and residential hostels. The pandemic has affected their studies seriously for long, and Diwali is likely to further affect their education.
Now, many tribal children have discontinued their studies and become cattle grazers as their parents, in these tough times, stopped the work of existing cattle grazers. Some are helping their parents in agriculture.
Some students have developed the habit of chewing tobacco, Ghutka etc and also got addicted to watching cricket matches, the 2020 world cup, the IPL matches, Kabaddi on their cell phones. and some others are playing online Matka and Pubji games.
Some adivasi students have discontinued their studies and become labourers in poultry farms, hotels and small companies by migrating to cities like Karimnagar, Hyderabad and Bangalore.
Adivasis would celebrate Gussadi-Dandari festival from October 25 to November 10 in the adivasi gudems in old Adilabad district. Children and elders alike engage themselves actively in this festival.
The tribal welfare department is focusing on enrolment of students and bringing the students back to school after they remained at home for the last one and half years due to the Covid pandemic. But, their turnout will be low for a month due to the Gussadi-Dandari festival.
Tribal welfare commissioner Christina Chongthu, who was in Utnoor, has stressed on enrolment of students. She was responding to pleas from leaders who represented her about the selection of CRTs in these residential schools in the old Adilabad district following the reopening of these educational institutions.
Generally, adivasi students who stay in tribal hostels go to their villages to celebrate Gussadi-Dandari and will return to their hostels after a month.
Many tribal students have lost the connection with their subjects during the 18 months of closure. Online classes were beyond their reach.
A teacher working at the Tribal Ashram school in Adilabad Rural mandal, who did valuable homework on the subject in the ‘Giri Darshini’ workbooks during the closure period, said many adivasis students were unable to answer even simple questions related to mathematics and sciences in the workbooks.
The Covid pandemic hit the adivasis’ education hard. They require reorientation.
Adivasi leaders say that the elected representative like Sarpanches, MPTCs, ZPTCs and community, village elders Patel, Devari and Sarmedis of Rai centres and adivasi associations must take the initiative to reduce the dropout rate among the adivasi students and bring the maximum of them back to the schools.
