Ambitious e-governance scheme for tribal welfare ashram schools and hostels – Andhra Pradesh

Photo © The Hindu >>

An ambitious plan is on the anvil to bring the administration of as many as 74 tribal welfare ashram schools and 45 tribal welfare hostels in the Bhadrachalam Agency under e-governance from the coming academic year. With a view to ensure transparency, the Tribal Welfare Department has initiated the process of bringing e-governance to the centre stage of hostel administration. […]

The proposed e-governance initiative would run on the lines of the online hostel monitoring system being successfully implemented by the Social Welfare Department in the State, said Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), Bhadrachalam, Project Officer G Veerapandian. It will replace the existing manual attendance marking system and pave the way for online monitoring of the functioning of the tribal welfare ashram schools and hostels. […]

Hostel wardens and headmasters concerned will be trained and issued user ID and passwords for the implementation of the new e-initiative tentatively christened “hostel project,” he said. It is poised to become operational in June.

Source: “Tribal schools, hostels under e-governance soon” by P. Sridhar, The Hindu, Khammam, May 7, 2013
Address : https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/andhra-pradesh/tribal-schools-hostels-under-egovernance-soon/article4692458.ece
Date Visited: 17 February 2021

Image © PARI People’s Archive of Rural India reporting on Covid-19 >>
Related posts: how India’s tribal communities cope with the pandemic >>

Covering the human cost of Covid-19
The nationwide Covid-19 lockdown that started on March 25 [2020] has triggered distress for millions of ordinary Indians – stranded migrant workers, farmers, sugarcane cutters, Adivasis, Dalits, sanitation workers, construction labourers, cancer patients staying on city pavements, brick kiln labourers, pastoral nomads, and others. While many are on the brink with no work, income or food, several continue to work amid extremely hazardous conditions | Read about them in these PARI reports from across the country >>

“If we are to halt the destruction of ecosystems, we need to understand how closely biodiversity and cultural diversity are intertwined. Perhaps it is time to reverse the gaze and begin to learn afresh from Adivasis.” – Felix Padel & Malvika Gupta in “Are mega residential schools wiping out India’s Adivasi culture?” (The Hindu, 13 February 2021) | More about the role of tribal communities in preserving India’s biodiversity and ethnobotany >>

Residential, Ashram and Factory schools

Backgrounder & image © Economic Times >>
  • Ekalavya* Residential School Scheme (EMR): a network of boarding schools where tribal children are to be educated in accordance with rules and syllabi provided by the government; such schools are being designated as “Eklavya Model Residential School (EMR)” with the objective of empowering students “to be change agent, beginning in their school, in their homes, in their village and finally in a large context.” – Government Guidelines 2010 | Backup >>
  • Residential School and Ashram School
    In some regions there are similar “Residential Schools” and “Ashram Schools” for tribal children, as in Tripura where they are managed by a society called “Tripura Tribal Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TTWREIS)” – Tribal Welfare Department, Government of Tripura
  • Factory schools “exist to turn tribal and indigenous children – who have their own language and culture – into compliant workers-of-the-future. The world’s largest Factory School stated that it turns ‘Tax consumers into tax payers, liabilities into assets’.” – survivalinternational.org/factoryschools | Learn more >>

    Up-to-date information about these and related issues: Safe custom search engine >>

* Ekalavya (Eklavya, Eklabya): the name of a legendary archer prodigy “who, being a Nishada [Sanskrit Niṣāda, “tribal, hunter, mountaineer, degraded person, outcast”], had to give his thumb as a fee to the brahmin guru thus terminating his skill as an archer.” – Romila Thapar (“The epic of the Bharatas”) | Read the full paper here | Backup download link (pdf) >>

Note: “Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” amounts to genocide, which the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention defines as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” (Article II, d & e)

Learn more about Childrens rights: UNICEF India | Ekalavya (Eklavya, Eklabya), EMR & Factory schools | Rights of Indigenous Peoples >>