Walking barefoot on the rough road of education

Eight-year-old Gameli Meghna, studying in class 3 of Korrapadu village, has to walk dangerously every day to reach school through the dense forest, which is about 3 km away from her village.

Nevertheless, she is still pursuing her educational dream along with 17 other children from her village. She bravely crosses three rivers and a slippery road to reach her school. During monsoons, this adventure becomes even more risky as the roads on the top of the hill become unfit for trekking due to landslides.

Accessible schools, especially for the Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) living in the interior slums of the agency area of ​​Alluri Sitaram Raju (ASR) district in Andhra Pradesh, remain a distant dream despite growing awareness about the importance of formalization. Education and desire to pursue it. All these children belong to the Kondhu tribe, which speaks the Kui language and is spread across Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.

The road leading to the village is not suitable for walking and is dangerous for motorcyclists. With stones piled up in the middle, the vehicle should be driven to extreme corners of the road overlooking the valley.

Sometimes, Meghna and the children have to walk in knee deep water. Villagers say their children often slip and get injured on their way to school.

fear of the grave

But for Meghna, what’s scarier than the slippery roads and snake-infested jungles is the graveyard on the way. “I am used to trekking. But the graveyard scares me,’ she says, fearing that when children reach the graveyard, they start running and slip on the wet road in a hurry, causing many injuries. .

Jamili Krishna, a former ward member and village head, says, “Parents take turns taking their children to the graveyard and pick them up from there after school. If the children have to come alone, they run scared.”

Mr. Krishna says that establishing a school in their village will end their suffering and give their children a chance to excel academically.

Snake encounter

when Hindu Reached Korrapadu with a lot of difficulty on a motorcycle, crossed a couple of rivers through rocky terrain and found a poisonous snake killed by the locals. The children said in unison that they often see snakes while going to school.

Korrapadu can be reached by two-wheelers; Some have bikes too. “It is impossible to drop and pick up children from school as we have to stop working in the fields or coffee plantations. During the coffee picking season, we have to protect the crop from monkey attacks and the space cannot be left,” says Mr. Krishna.

A school is approved in Tathipalem, another hill village a little far from Korrapadu, but there is no building there. The teacher conducts classes under the shade of trees and under a makeshift shed during the rainy season.

On the way to Korrapadu is the Mandal Parishad Higher Primary School at Kothapalem in Chintapalli Mandal of ASR District. Children from four villages study here, but G. About 20 students from Kidagari in Madugula mandal have to walk 3 km through forests and hills to reach the school. A total of 174 children from class 1 to 7 are studying in this school.

10-year-old K from Kidagari village. Radhika, studying in class 6 and wanting to become a doctor, said walking to school was not an option. Another girl named Killa Bhanu from the same village who is studying in class 7 said, “We start at 7 in the morning, it takes an hour to reach school. We start in groups as it is safer to stay with others when passing through the forest.”

Due to the lack of proper roads, these children are forced to walk barefoot, which has affected their studies. P. who teaches math and science in school. Srinivas says, “They cannot bear the weight of the school bag of four to five kilos and therefore leave the bag at school.

Children were left behind because they could not study at home. So from last year we started giving plastic bags to carry books. We started giving them homework on only one or two subjects daily so that they could carry only those books to read at home, adds Srinivas.

With 20 years of teaching experience in government schools in the Terai region, Srinivas says language is a major barrier in educating these children. He adds that children are also not receptive to new people. He says, ‘After coming here after being promoted two years ago, it was difficult to teach because the children did not get answers due to the language barrier for the first two months.

Shoe Worry

Another concern of these children is that walking barefoot on muddy roads even in the rainy season poses a risk of health problems. Srinivas says that parents do not ask their children to wear shoes as they are not used to wearing shoes or slippers at home.

The previous government provided one pair of shoes to each of these children. However, the practice was futile, as the boots they trekked through the muddy, mountainous terrain did not last long.

“When crossing the river, the shoes get wet, so the feet get scarred. So, they stopped wearing it. Croc-like shoes should have been provided to the students,” says a parent of a girl from Kidagari.

Meanwhile, 18 km away from Chintapalli mandal headquarters, J. Another primary school run by the Tribal Welfare Department at Rallagadda village has 24 children from Chintalawada, Dabbagandi and Kondapalli. To reach their school, children from Kondapalli have to walk 4 km while children from Chintlawada have to cross a river.

“Two years ago, we collected Rs 2 lakh from the villagers and constructed a dirt road so that our children could reach school safely. But in the recent rains, it washed away,’ says a villager in Kondapally. Some villagers say they send their children to distant relatives’ houses where there is a road to school.

The lack of roads to schools is not limited to one or two panchayats or mandals in the district. G. Six students from Tertala under Madugula Gram Panchayat travel over a kilometer on the hilly ghat road to Killamkota to go to school. Korra Meghna, who is studying in class 5 in a school in Killamkota, said that she had to cross a river to reach the school.

According to an official of the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), Paderu, 972 villages have no road network within their boundaries. About 1,224 villages in the entire ASR district do not have roads.

“There are schools within two to three kilometers of these villages and especially when it rains, it is difficult for children in these villages to go to school. Streams flow with full force, making crossing them dangerous and difficult,” adds the official.

According to the official, the government plans to build roads in these interior villages in the next three to four years under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and other funds.

Officials say the state has about 120 ashram schools, 11 gurukul schools, and 11 Eklavya model residential schools, each built at a cost of Rs 20 crore in the state.

Bhantala Bhaskar Rao, a graduate from the Kondhu community, says there is a need for infrastructure improvements and changes in the education system to give tribal children a fair chance to compete with the mainstream world.

Shri Bhaskar Rao G. Working in Madugula Mandal volunteers at SR Sankaram Adivasi Aid Kendra, a community service center to support tribals in accessing public services in ASR district. He has dedicated his efforts in making extensive visits to the tribal areas, solving the problems of the people there, creating awareness among the tribals about the facilities available in the government’s medical and health services and addressing their problems with the relevant authorities.

“The tribals, especially the Kondu community, have started changing their lifestyle and are showing impressive progress. Some have even taken higher education. Even though education for girls was prohibited, now they encourage their girls to go to school,” says Mr. Bhaskar Rao.

Mr. Bhaskar Rao insists that teachers should stay at their place of work or at least at the nearest mandal headquarters so that they can teach till the last hour of the school. Some teachers live as far as Visakhapatnam and come to school on time because of biometric attendance, but parents say they don’t stay till the last period.

Lifestyle changes

The Kondhu, belonging to the PVTG, depend on ‘Konda Podu’ (hill shifting cultivation) and work in agricultural fields and coffee plantations. They sometimes hunt animals for their consumption.

Once known for their infamous ‘monster marriage’ culture, where a man forcibly abducts the woman of his choice and marries her, the tribes are also slowly adapting to the changing lifestyle. Villagers say that due to the fear and awareness of police cases, such marriages cannot take place now.

As the young generation is educated and migrates in search of livelihood, children have also started showing interest in formal education. Residential schools have also contributed greatly to providing education to these tribals. In Madugula, Paderu and Visakhapatnam, young people, especially men, with bachelor’s degrees started working, says Mr. Bhaskar Rao.

However, Srinivas says that ensuring a conducive environment in schools is important to maintain and nurture their interest in academics. The teacher explains, “They have grown up in an environment where they roam freely in the open wilderness, and if we try to lock them in the classroom all day, they will not stop coming to school. Therefore, we allow them to play during breaks and even during classes.”

He says, ‘From outside the school, it appears that children are playing without studying, but that is not the case.