Towards Inclusive Learning

In this story, we discuss how the current public-school system falls short on the promise of delivering inclusive education to children hailing from varied social, cultural, and economic backgrounds. The non-profits we spoke with are devising strategies to respond to the diversity in the classrooms by tailoring curriculum, pedagogy, teachinglearning materials for the specific contexts they work in.

Encouraging Linguistic and Cultural Diversity

Unnati Institute for Social and Educational Change (Unnati ISEC) works in Maharashtra, in the Akot and Telhara blocks of Akola district and the southern tip of the Melghat region of Amravati district. This region is home to the Korku tribe that forms the majority and a small population is from the Nimadi, Gond and Bhil tribes. Children are exposed only to Korku, their mother tongue during the formative six years since birth. Hindi and Marathi are used to communicate with people outside their community. The formal school system does not have learning materials in Korku. The emphasis on using Marathi as the medium of education has forced the usage of Korku to be limited only to the community.

Hemangi Joshi, Chief Functionary of Unnati ISEC shares, “We live in a democratic country where individuals and communities are guaranteed a dignified life. However, what we have seen is that the languages and culture of disadvantaged groups are pushed to the periphery. Further, plurality in experiences and practices is essential for any democracy, and our nation can thrive as a democracy only if diversity is acknowledged and encouraged.”

The Anganwadi centers in the region are restricted only for nutritional and welfare services and fail to provide foundational education to children. Primary school teachers are mostly from different sociocultural backgrounds, and often have little or no knowledge about the culture and worldview of the tribal communities of the region. Teachers’ reluctance to learn and interact with children in Korku, and a curriculum that fails to incorporate their practices and contexts, have resulted in high dropout rates and low literacy levels.

To ensure that the young acknowledge and preserve diversity, we need to have an education system that accords dignity to diverse social groups.

Hemangi shares, “During the pandemic, for seven-eight months, we had the opportunity to work with children who had never been to schools. When we used Korku as a medium of education and interaction and contextualized the curriculum, these children showed keen interest in learning. We have observed that children who had started going to schools and came to our learning centers were visibly underconfident in the classroom. This was because the classrooms failed to be inclusive and tailor the education to suit the experiences of young learners.”

To respond to the learning problems of children from the Korku community, under their program ‘Shiku Anande (Let’s Learn with Joy)’, Unnati adopted a mother-tonguebased multilingual education approach. This multi-pronged approach includes facilitating improvement in Korku (mother tongue) literacy in tribal children, and in Marathi which remains as the school’s medium of education, tailoring instructional strategies accordingly, making textbooks available in Korku, and creating spaces in school where the culture and language of each child are given respect. For instance, the team started contextualizing books for children by using popular sayings in their language, stories about cooking delicacies with pictures, photo albums of vegetables that can be foraged from forests, etc.

Unnati ISEC runs two learning centers where trained local youths conduct two and halfhour-long sessions five days a week before school time throughout the year. For the first two years, the focus remains to develop literacy in the Korku language and create opportunities for listening and speaking Marathi. In the third year, strategies are used to develop Marathi reading skills. Hemangi adds, “To date, Korku remains a non-scripted language. We use the Devanagari script for the Korku language. Since Devanagari script is also used for Marathi, the learning journey of a child in both languages remains smooth.”

The Unnati ISEC team is now expanding their work to two district schools and is hopeful that the model of mother-tongue-based multilingual education will be successful in the school setting. Leveraging the evidence gathered on the model in these two schools, the team wishes to push for its adoption across the state.

The National Education Policy, 2020, mentions that wherever possible, the medium of instruction until at least Grade 5, but preferably till Grade 8 and beyond, will be the home language/mother-tongue/ local language/regional language. Strangling linguistic and cultural diversity is not an option. We will have to devise an education system that responds to diversity.

Using Sports for Inclusion

Violence is not foreign to the people of Manipur. Tensions between the two major ethnic groups in the hill districts of Manipur – Kukis and Nagas – have brewed for decades. This conflict got severe in 1992-97 with villages being burned down by armed groups belonging to both tribes. The relationship between the groups continues to be strained.

Recognize, Rise and Empower Association (RREA) is a non-profit based in Manipur, working for the socio-economic empowerment and sustainable development of communities in and around the troubled peripheries of North-East India.

Mathanmi Hungyo, CEO and Director of RREA says, “I was born in the backdrop of the conflict between the Kukis and Nagas. In the Kamjong district where we work, the two groups are almost in equal numbers. In villages, we continuously heard about the tension between the two groups from our elders. It became difficult to develop cohesion between the Kuki and Naga students in schools as they carried the biases of their elders.”

The team was working in the Kamjong district school for a while and they noted that children did not have any dedicated play space. The RREA team decided to conduct a pilot introducing sports in the Kamjong district school. They started with football and saw the children enjoy playing. Later, badminton and table tennis were also introduced.

Rohit Aggarwal, from the RREA team, says, “We did not introduce the sports program with specific outcomes in mind. We wanted the children to have a space to play. We did not want their learning to be limited to classrooms and got them some basic sports equipment. We encouraged the students to come to play before or after school. The Sports Educator and Sports Coordinator in each school oversaw the activities.”

In the classrooms, children hailing from the two tribes kept to themselves and barely interacted with each other. Mathanmi recounts, “When the ‘Sports for Social Development’ program was launched, if a team member belonged to the other tribe and was part of their team, children still refused to pass the football. Children wanted to elect the team captain from the same tribe as theirs. Our team never interfered in these decisions. We wanted the children to unlearn the biases on their own.”

Both Mathanmi and Rohit shared that it did not take long for the children to start befriending each other. They started passing the football to children from the other tribe and they elected the captain who they thought will be a good leader. The team noticed that there was a spike in attendance of the children who engaged in sports activities, and they demonstrated leadership capabilities. The sports program was later introduced in schools where the efforts could be supported by a fellow from Teach for North-East, a program anchored by RREA.

The RREA team does understand that the violence and historical differences between Nagas and Kukis force the communities to treat each other with suspicion. The team is optimistic that it will take a while for the children to erase the bitterness. Mathanmi adds, “There are instances when students from different schools question a student from Kuki or Naga community on the need to play and befriend students from other communities. It is reassuring to see our students explaining to them to not let the differences divide us. They would even invite these students to play with them. It is only with patience and love that these constructed differences can be addressed.” There are still stray instances of violence between the two communities. The bitterness percolates to the lives of students too. It can only be hoped that by kicking the ball, serving on the table tennis table, or the badminton court, these children can learn to be together.

The Necessity of Listening

The Amma Social Welfare Association (ASWA) is an organization that for decades has led community initiatives. In the last few years, they have pivoted their focus to education, and they are working in the multilingual and multicultural peri-urban community of Shadnagar, near Hyderabad.

The community predominantly comprises of families of migrant laborers hailing from the states of Bihar, Karnataka, Maharastra, and Uttar Pradesh and also from families of the Lambanis, a nomadic community that has now settled in parts of Telangana and Karnataka. The medium of education is Telugu. The children who attend the government schools come from multilingual backgrounds, and find it difficult to achieve minimum proficiency in foundational literacy and numeracy in Telugu.

The ASWA team uses a balanced approach in teaching language and literacy. The curriculum incorporates day-to-day experiences of children, and it is tailored to the needs of each child.

To strengthen the primary school education of children from the migrant labor families in Shadnagar, ASWA had launched initiatives for improving linguistic competence and literacy. Haritha from ASWA engaged with children enrolled in the nearby government primary school in Ramnagar. When Haritha started engaging with them in 2018, she observed that the children of the migrant labor families found it difficult to understand lessons. The teachers and school management discouraged the children to converse amongst themselves in their mother-tongue. They did not take any extra efforts to help the struggling children to cope up with classes. This resulted in higher dropouts amongst children in the region.

The ASWA team uses a balanced approach in teaching language and literacy. The curriculum incorporates day-to-day experiences of children, and it is tailored to the needs of each child. Haritha, shares, “In 2018, when I started engaging with the children in grades first to third, I encouraged them to express their views. I asked mundane questions such as how their family is, what did they do or whether they had any food or not. I used to tell them that they could share in their mother tongue which included Bhagirathi, Lambadi, Bhojpuri, Hindi, Marathi, and Urdu, and I will try understanding what they were saying. This was the first time a teacher was trying to understand their language. Often, words such as ‘mother’, ‘father’, or ‘home’ would be used by them, and I would try learning those words.” Sreenivasa from ASWA adds, “Once Haritha gave them a space to express themselves in their mothertongue, the children showed interest in learning activities.”

Haritha says, “To build their interest in learning Telugu and numeracy, we use methods such as the arts, learning through rhymes or storybooks, and we encourage children to take part. All these methods are participatory, and children can learn new concepts by expressing themselves. It is heart-warming to see children humming the rhymes they have learned.”

In the school, other teachers are hesitant to adopt these methods. Haritha shares, “The teachers used to tell me that the kids are noisy in my class, and I should be strict with them. Our team spent sufficient time in understanding each child’s social, economic, and cultural background, and we gave them space to express and discuss their daily experiences, which is key for the children to connect with the teacher and learning process. The students regularly started coming to school and their learning abilities also improved. Once the teachers saw children taking an active interest in learning, they became open to giving space for children to express themselves.”

In the wake of the pandemic, children found it difficult to cope up with learning. The ASWA team set up a Children Learning Center in Ramnagar slum in October 2020. The team followed the same learning methods for children who enrolled and saw a similar positive response.

The ASWA team recently set up a Children’s Library to encourage children to build their interest in books and reading. It believes that the education system falls short in giving avenues for children from diverse backgrounds to express themselves. They are confident that if we listen to what the children have to say, they will be happy to learn.

Unlearning Biases

Maarga is based in an area with workingclass families with multilingual and multicaste backgrounds in urban Bengaluru. They work with primary and middle school children on literacy and numeracy. They run a library for children as well.

Bengaluru is home to migrant families from Karnataka and the neighboring states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu, among others.

The adults in the families are mostly engaged in daily wage labor and reside in the slum areas of the city. The mother tongue of the migrants happens to be Telugu, Urdu, or Tamil among others. According to Rajendran Prabhakar, General Secretary of Maarga, children from slums of Bengaluru are mostly enrolled in schools run by Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), the administrative body overseeing civic amenities in the city, and in schools run by linguistic or religious minorities, and private schools. The schools run by BBMP have a reasonable infrastructure and human resources, but the teachers lack the will to deliver quality education.

Some parents believe that enrolment in private schools can ensure better education than public schools. Prabhakar says, “Parents are duped by these private schools promising better education and learning outcomes. These schools are levying high fees. The parents even go to the extent of borrowing money to cover the costs of the education of their children. Schools run by linguistic or religious minority groups do not provide better education either.”

The Maarga team believes that poor learning levels of children in any language – Kannada which is prescribed by the state government, the mother tongue(s) of children, or English, have resulted in them being unable to write or express themselves well in any language. Teachers taking lessons in Kannada often think that since the mother tongue of students is different, there is no merit in improving their fluency in Kannada.

There are poor efforts towards helping children learn their mother tongue and their command over English also remains weak. Teachers lack empathy for students struggling to learn these languages and seldom provide any remedial measures.

Maarga has launched two education programs to address these problems. The first program has two learning centers running for two hours six days a week in classes one to four in Bengaluru. The team facilitates learning in four subjects – languages, mathematics, art and crafts, and environmental sciences. Their methods heavily focus on experiential learning.

Prabhakar shares, “For an exposure visit we took the children to a lake. When we returned, we asked them to share the things they observed and their experiences. All of them had different responses. The problem in language learning is that seldom it is about expressing. Here, since we emphasized experiential learning methods, they were able to express themselves well. We later asked them to write what they had observed. We aim to develop critical thinking abilities in children and not treat them as passive receivers of education.”

The Maarga team is also closely working with two nearby government schools in the neighborhood to support systemic changes in curriculum, pedagogy, and teacher support in foundational and middle school literacy and numeracy.

It has also launched its library program in the learning centers where the library is envisioned as an enabling educational space. The slums hardly have any libraries that expose children to new ideas.

Another important aspect of Maarga’s approach is that all facilitators in the learning centers hail from the communities residing in the slums.

Through interactions with other organizations, the team expanded their understanding of libraries and books and the multiple learning possibilities from library activities. For instance, in any story narrated in the learning center, facilitators through their creativity would request children to reflect on certain aspects.

In these learning centers, the Maarga team conducts social education sessions that expose children to the Indian constitution’s preamble, and its values such as equality, the meaning of independence for them, or the works of Ambedkar. These sessions aim that each child learns to critique the systemic injustices meted out to them.

Prabhakar shared that in public parks located in the neighborhood of National Games Village, children from slums are often turned away from playing there.

He says, “These are young children who are angry or confused about the discrimination against them. We orient them to understand these systemic biases against people from the slums and encourage them to protect their rights such as in this case, the right to access these public spaces. We also reassure them that there are people in the world who do not subscribe to such values.”

The team continuously works to remove biases against different religious communities or genders. Stereotypes against children from certain religious communities being considered unclean or rowdy are rife. Prabhakar shared that in these instances, they made the children realize that poor water supply does not allow them to bathe every day, and poverty forces them to have two-three pairs of clothes.

The National Education Policy, 2020, mentions that wherever possible, the medium of instruction until at least Grade 5, but preferably till Grade 8 and beyond, will be the home language/mother-tongue/ local language/regional language.

The boys in the slums also have deep patriarchal notions about girls being dull and inefficient. They think that there is no need to educate them well and they need to focus on household chores. Prabhakar adds, “The team dispels these notions through engaging with them in discussions or using audio-visual media such as showing children videos of successful women such as Kalpana Chawla.”

Another important aspect of Maarga’s approach is that all facilitators in the learning centers hail from slum communities. Prabhakar shares, “The facilitators are aware of the socio-cultural realities of the slums. For instance, a child in a slum might have to help their parents with household chores or take care of their siblings. The facilitators from the community are aware of these situations and are sensitive in dealing with children on this. The facilitators do not come with any high-headedness. These facilitators are later trained with our teaching methods. The children need empathetic facilitators who are interested in their learning.”

Through an approach that is sensitive to the diversity amongst the children they work with, Maarga works to enable children to attain their potential. By enhancing the critical learning and thinking abilities of children, Maarga is ensuring that these young leaders question layered inequalities, and the skewed organization of resources and opportunities in our society.

In Conclusion

We cannot allow India to become a monocultural society that acts as an echo chamber for similar thoughts and experiences. To ensure that the young acknowledge and preserve diversity, we need to have an education system that accords dignity to diverse social groups. The constitutional ethos of celebrating diversity and fostering inclusion must be enforced in letter and spirit. These efforts could begin by ensuring a responsive education system.