A STUDY OF THE EFFECT OF HOUSEHOLD, COMMUNITY AND SCHOOL FACTORS ON THE ENROLMENT, RETENTION AND ACHIEVEMENT OF SCHEDULED TRIBE CHILDREN AT PRIMARY LAVEL
National Council of Educational Research and Training, New Delhi
K.B. RATH
Regional Institute of Education, Ajmer
ABSTRACT This study derived its data from a number of studies conducted under District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) such as Baseline Achievement Study, Tribal Study, Teacher Needs and Motivation, Household Study (Assam) and Planning for and with Tribal : A case of DPEP. The sample includes the data pertaining to Scheduled Tribe from Assam, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu. In all 29 districts have been represented in the sample. The study is delimited by the fact that no fresh data was collected. Inference have been drawn with respect to effect of household, community and school factors on enrolment, retention and achievements, which are cardinal concerns for universal elementary education. The study brings out the need for making tribe as specific unit for planning and decentralization of curriculum development and implementation. It also brings out the need for greater community participation by relating education to the community needs.
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Introduction This is a study based on derivation. of data collected for a number of studies under District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) with different sets of objectives, samples and methodologies. The purpose of taking up this study was to cull out many meaningful correlation of the household, community and school factors with enrolment, retention and achievement of the Scheduled Tribe children. The incumbent limitation set before the researchers was that no fresh data was to be collected. This then meant that the samples that were covered under different studies should be converging on particular set of children and the households, community and schools so that the data could be cross matched for a meaningful research. The studies that were to be relied upon the data were.-- Baseline achievement study which measured the achievement of the children in language and mathematics at the primary stage in which among all students some were tribal students, though their tribal denominations are not mentioned; Gender study which concentrated mostly on the gender issues in general and Scheduled Tribes (ST) were not covered, or are not so classified as to bring out the effect of household, community and school factors on enrolment and achievement of these children; Teacher study, which again did not concentrate on only tribal teacher but it did have some tribal teachers whose views could be relevant to the topic of the study; Assam household study, which studied the householder in the state of Assam only and which could have some tribal household included in its sample; Planning for and with tribal people the case of DPEP, which studied the tribal profiles in some DPEP districts which studied the planning strategies adopted in case of tribal development and education in the context of the ethnographic profiles of different tribes in the districts; and, Scheduled Tribe Studies which looked at the educational needs and profiles of the scheduled tribes in selected blocks in some of the DPEP districts.
Objectives (i) If there were any effect of the household, community and school factors on the enrolment of the Scheduled Tribe children;
(ii) If there were any effect of the household, community and school factors on the retention of Scheduled Tribe children;
(iii) If there were any effect of the household, community and school factors on the achievement of the Scheduled Tribe children at the primary stage of education.
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TABLE 1
Sample Included from Baseline Achievement Study
State Districts Total ST Total No. of Total Teachers
Students Students Schools Teachers In schools
With ST With ST
Students Students
Assam Darrang 472 38 45 6 137 19
Moregaon 399 22 35 20 110 53
Karbianglong293 156 35 22 121 76
Dhubri 515 98 45 30 84 70
Mahara- Nanded 610 21 44 11 139 44
shtra Aurangabad 746 47 41 18 130 56
Parbhani 790 38 43 15 140 51
Orissa Kalahandi 468 91 41 27 152 101
Raygada 363 26 44 15 141 48
Gajapati 275 98 44 32 114 89
Phulbani 258 63 35 24 98 87
Tamil Dharampuri 974 44 47 18 155 59
Nadu Tiruvanna- 697 18 38 14 94 44
malaai
South Arcot 652 34 31 13 96 43
Madhya Betul 685 79 41 24 119 61
Pradesh Ratlam 428 35 42 20 119 57
Shahdol 406 144 45 36 86 73
Rewa 588 50 42 19 109 57
Sidhi 386 69 42 24 92 52
Bilaspur 804 108 45 30 129 91
Panna 280 41 42 18 88 42
Dhar 472 127 41 28 106 80
Surguja 311 106 44 38 88 80
Sehore 496 51 42 18 102 53
Rajgarh 398 65 42 21 81 48
Rajnandgaon 607 71 42 26 106 70
Karnataka Kolar 550 96 45 - 109 -
Raichur 580 70 43 - 88 -
Kerala Wynad 1129 170 40 - 187 -
Total 15623 2076 1205 567 3320 1604
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TABLE 2
Sample Included from Tribal Study
State District Teacher Head Village Parents Community Learner Learner
Teacher Head Leader School not School
Going Going
Assam Darrang 27 10 10 100 50 103 71
Marigaon 14 7 10 101 46 109 78
Karnataka Kolar 20 10 10 100 40 109 88
Raichur 28 10 10 100 40 120 80
Kerala Kasargod 60 10 10 100 50 120 66
Wayanad 60 10 10 100 50 120 36
Madhya Beatul 22 10 10 109 10 120 80
Pradesh Ratlam 27 10 10 110 10 119 80
Raigarh 26 10 10 105 10 120 79
Shahdol 21 8 9 104 10 113 70
Mahara
shtra Nanded 30 16 10 100 30 121 55
Orissa Kalahandi 18 17 10 98 40 36 127
Rayagada 17 16 10 100 40 78 121
Tamil
nadu Dharampuri 80 10 10 100 50 120 80
Tiruvanna- 88 10 10 100 50 118 79
malai
Given the objectives the research questions that were flamed were:
1. Are there villages/blocks which are common to all DPEP studies which can be considered for this derivative study?
2. Can the proposed study throw some light on educational indicators, viz., enrolment, retention, and achievement of the Scheduled Tribe children at the primary level of education, when all the studies are amalgamated?
3. Can the proposed study be able to cull out information relating home, community and school factors which impinge upon enrolment, retention and learning achievement of the Scheduled Tribe children at the primary level of education?
4. How best the clustering of subjects be achieved inspite of the overall objective of amalgamation so as to keep the contamination of responses - which can indicate the needs of different Scheduled Tribe communities - at a minimum? and
5. Is it feasible to generalize the derived findings for all ST communities or is it feasible to assort the responses of different ST groups so as to provide
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TABLE 3
Variables Selected from Baseline Study
Factors Variables Variables Description
House Sex Boys=1, Girls=2
Hold Sibbling Addition of brother, sister and
cousins staying in the family
Family size Addition of total Family Member
Parent Education Illiterate=1, Up to H.Sec. =2,
College=3
Father Occupation Farmer=1, Agriculture & Unskilled
Labour=2, Skilled Worker=3, Other=4.
Mother Occupation House Wife=1, Cultivation=2, Agric.
and Unskilled labour=3, Other=4
Academic Help Received Help received=1, No help=2
from Family
Availability of Food Always=1, Sometimes=2, Never=3
Mid Day Meal Not Applicable=0, Avail and
Satisfied=2, Not Getting=3
Repeater Not Repeat=1, Repeat=2
Teacher Attendance Every Days=1, Most Days=2
Sometimes=3, Rarely=4
Maths Problems Given Every Days=1, Sometimes=2, Never=3
School Knowledge of Result
Provided Always=1, Sometimes=2, Never=3
Teacher Gives Home Regularly=1, Sometimes=2, Never=3
Work
Teacher Correct Home Always=1, Sometimes=2, Never=3
Work
Reading Other Books Yes= 1, No=2
specific ST status/needs which can be much more meaningful as each ST group is ethnologically distinct from the other?
Limitations The limitations of this study are many. The sample covered by different studies do not converge. So the results obtained from them cannot be zeroed in. It has to ignore the focus, sample, methodologies and the tools of these studies, except of course to analyze the tools to find out the ST discrimination and responses for purposes of data retrieval. The desired point of convergence of all studies on same geographic unit or the learners is not possible. Therefore the efforts have to be made to relate the data to likely tribe, based on the assumption that if a particular district is common the predominant tribe inhabiting the district would have been covered in the samples of different studies and the data may be representing their characteristics. This is a serious
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TABLE 4
Variables Selected from Tribal Study
Factors Variables Variables Description
Family Income Less than 500=1, Less than 1000=2, 1000 more=3
Occupation of Parents Cultivation=1, Manual Work=2, Household Work=3,
Self employment=4, Govt Service=5
Parents Perception about School
School time Suit Yes=1, No=2
Children
Like School System Yes=1, No=2
House Regularity of Teacher Yes=1, No=2
Hold
Participate in School Yes= 1, No=2
Function
Regional Language as Yes= 1, No=2
Medium of Instruction
Tribal Dilect as Medium Yes=1, No=2
of Instruction
Familiarity with Yes=1, No=2
Incentive Scheme
Enrolment GER was calculated
Drop Out Dropout rate as given by the teacher
Teacher Qualification Below Matric=1, High Sec=2, Graduate & above=3
Teacher Training Yes=1, No=2
Incentive Available in Time Yes=1, No=2
Preschool Facility Yes=1, No=2
Incentives Total Number of items available under the scheme was
counted.
School Curriculum State=1, Tribal=2
Teaching Medium Tribal=1, Regional=2, Both=3
Book Suitability Yes=1, No=2
Books comprehensibility Yes=1, No=2
Too Much Home work Yes=1, No=2
BEO Supervised Yes=1, No=2
DEO Supervised Yes=1, No=2
Dy Director Supervised Yes=1, No=2
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Factors Variables Variables Description
Village Education Committee Yes=1, No=2
Active Participation of VEC Yes=1, No=2
Freq of Participation No Participation1, More than once2, Once in a
Year=3
Commu- NGO working Yes=1, No=2
nity Village Head Cordination Yes=1, No=2
VEC Co-ordination Yes=1, No=2
Panchayat co-ordination Yes=1, No=2
Community Leader Yes=1, No=2
Coordination
limitation and a forced assumption has been made as stated above. The sample is, therefore, incidental in this study and has been taken as a given condition.
Methodology The samples of all the studies were examined to find out if any two studies had covered the same learner or village or block or the district or the state. This convergence was found only at the district level and not even at the block level let alone the village or the learner level. Thus the answer to the first research question was in the negative.
Instruments and tools of all these studies were analyzed to cull out the data pertaining to ST communities from those items that gives ST discrimination. The data from different studies were pooled together and they were classified as pertaining to household, community or school factors. Some of the items were such that transcended such categories and therefore were considered for more than one category, if necessary. The data were analyzed and statistically treated, wherever possible, by using analysis of variance, Chi-square for high, average and low achievement groups and Pearson product moment correlation for significant association between household, community and school factors with achievement in language and mathematics.