Supporting Education for Dalit children in Tamil Nadu, India

There are approximately 160 million Dalits in India, representing about 17% of the population. According to the social and religious system, Dalits are considered unclean and polluting and are known within the caste system as ‘untouchables’. (FN:  The Government uses the official term “Scheduled Castes” to refer to Dalits and other low caste Indians).  Until the late 18th century, they were not allowed to own land or any other assets, not allowed to be educated and forced into labour and other ritually unclean occupations like manual scavenging. Whilst it is no longer legal, many social and religious customs continue to exclude and exploit, and discriminate against them.   The inevitable result of this systematic discrimination, based upon descent, is poverty.  Dalits have lower life expectancy and literacy levels, higher infant mortality and are significantly more likely to be engaged in manual/casual wage labour than Indians from non-Dalit castes.  Whilst they often own land, a significantly higher proportion own land parcels too small to sustain a family.  Caste-based discrimination also results in considerable hardship.  Dalits are often not allowed access to village infrastructure used by other non-Dalit Indians (roads, village water sources, places of worship).  They are not allowed to share non-Dalit cooking or eating utensils.   They are more likely to be subject to violence and humiliation, including rape.

In late 2006, in an important step towards ending entrenched caste-based discrimination, Manmohan Singh became the first sitting Indian Prime Minister to publicly acknowledge the parallel between “untouchability” and apartheid.  He noted that “even after 60 years of constitutional and legal protection and state support, there is still social discrimination against Dalits in many parts of our country.”  

Dalit activists, movements and organizations tend to address immediate concerns such as violence and atrocities and “untouchable” practices.  Around 25,000 cases of violence against Dalits are reported each year, a figure generally acknowledged as under-estimation, owing to under-reporting.  As important as it is that Dalits have equal access to justice, there has been insufficient attention placed on improving access to education.  Dalit communities, however, recognize widely, that education is a powerful tool for overcoming caste-based discrimination.

In June 2006, IF agreed to support a program in India which is working to improve the school retention rates of Dalit children, build their confidence and raise the awareness of career opportunities in senior high school.  This program, known as the ‘Program for Education and Awareness Building’ (PEAB), is in Madhurantakam, Tamil Nadu, India.

We are very happy for the opportunity to be involved with this project, which has a strong community dynamic, targets a clearly marginalised community, and reflects one of IF’s key community development sectors – education. 

Why education?
In the context of growing competition and privatised education, government run schools in rural and urban India have increasingly become centres where only the poorest and marginalised send their children. Students consist largely of children from poor, low caste communities, primarily Dalit. Private education has been mushrooming — even in the rural areas, people who can afford to enroll their children in the private schools. Consequently, the quality of public education, and teachers’ accountability and commitment to fulfill their responsibilities continues to fall. The large majority of children (around 75%) in the non-paying government schools come from the Dalit communities and the remaining from other lower castes.

The impact of discrimination on Dalit children is reflected in school retention rates. While almost 98% of Dalit children are enrolled in Grade 1, more than 70% drop out by grade VIII. Less than 3% go on to higher education. Whilst there are more girls in government schools than boys, the proportion of girls who discontinue their education is much higher than boys. Most Dalit children in public schools are first generation learners and their parents or community have difficulty providing financial support and informed guidance to them.

The Pravaham Trust

The Pravaham Trust is a small Not for Profit organisation located in Venkatapuram in Tamil Nadu, about two hours’ drive from the PEAB site. It focuses on education as the most important tool for the development of the Dalit community. The Trust aims to enhance learning opportunities for children and youth from marginalised communities.

The Trust also trains annually 25 young women who have dropped out of school and are from the poorest families.  Over ten months they train to become nursing assistants and conclude their training with two months work placement in Bangalore.

The idea for the project IF is now supporting came from the current project manager in Madhurantakam,, Mr Dayalan, a Dalit himself, who has been a crusader for education in villages around his home for more than 20 years.

IF’s connection

Pat Duggan, a longstanding supporter of IF, provides the personal link to this project. Her colleague, Annie Namala, has been working with the Dalit community, through the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights and the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies for over 20 years, exposing their situation and advocating for an improvement in their human rights. Her family is also a long standing supporter of the Pravaham Trust with whom Annie worked to develop Dayalan’s idea into action.

IF support

An initial one year Commitment Agreement was signed between IF and the Pravaham Trust with continuation of support after this time being subject to a positive visit by Pat Duggan. The Trust continued with their aim to establish a community based education and counselling program for Dalit children with this funding.

Annie Namala, IF’s country liaison officer who lives in New Delhi, provided support to the project as well as to IF in undertaking monitoring and review visits to the project site. Monitoring and evaluation visits found that the project was making good progress, it was addressing critical issues for Dalit communities in a strategic and cost effective way, and the Trust was providing appropriate and timely support to the project.

Evolution:  hurdles overcome in the project’s first year

Not long after the Agreement with the Trust, it became clear that school administrators were not willing to support the planned mentoring and coaching program for senior school students: the centre piece of the project.  Government school administrators claimed that all schools in Tamil Nadu were already offering such coaching and teachers were paid to provide extra coaching for 1-2 hours every afternoon to students. During Pat and Annie’s visit in April 2007, it became clear that the teachers were not really providing this. While the Government of Tamil Nadu has made real efforts in the past few years to tighten up teaching performance management (with some success) IF heard many examples of a different reality. One group of Year 12 students, for instance, described how they hadn’t had a math teacher all year. They would not be granted an exemption from the exams, or be marked differently, owing to this lack of teacher. Fortunately the tutor at their village education (or homework) centre was a year 12 math graduate now studying computing. He provided tuition to this group as a stop gap measure.  Anyone with spare money is sending their senior student children to a tutor but few Dalit children are able to afford this.

Although Dayalan and the Pravaham Trust remain committed to developing coaching programs for curriculum and life skills for Year 10 and 12 students, it was apparent that it would take some time to gain acceptance by school administrators of the idea and further develop the proposed coaching program.

Village Education Centres (VECs), or “homework” centres

To adjust to this reality, Dayalan, in consultation with the Trust, decided to go ahead to establish nine VECs in nine different Dalit villages in Madhurantakam. The schools are conducted every evening for two-three hours, with between 40 and 60 students attending each school every evening. Given the relatively low qualification of the tutors, attendance is mainly primary school students. Children told IF that the schools were a much more conducive place to study than at home, where there was often no electricity and too many distractions from other family members.

A three year Commitment Agreement

The positive direction and outcomes of the PEAB for Dalit school children led to the signing of a 3 year Commitment Agreement between IF and the Pravaham Trust in January 2008. This will allow time to consolidate the village centres and to develop the counselling and education program for senior high school students – the initial target group. Key priorities of the project include:

• Capacity building for tutors because although the existing tutors appear to be doing a remarkable job despite their lack of training, they need much more support.

• Improving the infrastructure of the evening schools because all but one of the schools do not have a dedicated space and are therefore operating in the open, sometimes in people’s front yards, with inadequate lighting.  When it rains, the village schools will become even more important, as many of the Dalit villages are located over the river from the relevant formal school, which becomes inaccessible during the rains.

• Establishing parents’ support groups to support each tutor and manage the above improvements and, eventually, to manage and finance the centres themselves.

• Developing materials and a strategy for a life skills and careers counselling program for senior students, following more advocacy for acceptance by school administrators to the concept.

The project will also establish a Project Committee comprising members of the community which will meet regularly to oversee the project’s activities.  The Project Committee will provide guidance and support to the project manager.  It should be substantially involved in planning and, particularly, in the annual IF visit and annual reporting. 

There is strong potential for this program to be replicated in other areas where Dalit children continue to suffer marginalisation and this is an exciting prospect. There are also a number of research opportunities arising out of the project, which our Liaison Officer, Annie Namala will be developing. This is extremely important to IF, as we try to bridge the action – research gap that is so prevalent in development.

This is an extremely worthwhile project and we have the opportunity to work with a capable partner to implement it. We therefore hope to continue providing much needed support to Dalit children in this part of southern India. We also hope to learn a great deal from this project and the people involved about the issues of marginalisation in the India context.

If you would like more information please contact the IF project manager Pat Duggan at indigo.foundation@bigpond.com.