Video | “Our values, farming, song and dances”: Tribal and indigenous peoples’ education must be rooted in the people’s own land, language and culture – Survival International

All those children that are studying at KISS they are not able to learn our traditional way of farming. This is a very sad thing. The world depends on farming. They don’t know how to sow the seeds, nor the paddy. Nothing in our culture interests them anymore. The school leaves them half ignorant. They’re forgetting our values, farming, song and dances. Our vital traditions are being lost. They are bing ‘modernized’ […] They see us as inferior beings. – A tribal mother’s concerns, transcribed (accessed 28 March 2021)

Today around two million tribal children worldwide are being taught in Factory Schools, where they are stripped of their indigenous identity and indoctrinated to conform to the dominant society.

We’re on a mission to end Factory Schooling. Tribal and indigenous peoples’ education must be under their control; it must be rooted in the people’s own land, language and culture; and instil pride in themselves and their people.

Help us put indigenous education back under indigenous control. […]

Big corporations and extractive industries often sponsor Factory Schools. These companies want to profit from indigenous land, labor and resources, and Factory Schools are a cheap means to try to secure this in the long term.

Extractive industries in India and Mexico support schools which teach children to embrace mining, and to reject the connection their people have to their lands as “primitive.” States use schooling as a means of inculcating patriotism  […] 

Source: https://www.survivalinternational.org/factoryschools
Date visited: 30 June 2020

“If a man cannot enjoy the return of spring, why should he be happy in a labour-saving Utopia? … I think that by retaining one’s childhood love of such things as trees, fishes, butterflies and … toads, one makes a peaceful and decent future a little more probable, and that by preaching the doctrine that nothing is to be admired except steel and concrete, one merely makes it a little surer that human beings will have no outlet for their surplus energy except in hatred and leader worship.” – George Orwell

Two Cheers for Democracy by E.M Foster in (London: Penguin Books 1976), p. 76

EMRSs [Eklavya Model Residential Schools] are a flagship intervention of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs to provide quality education to tribal students in remote tribal areas. The programme being implemented since 1998 have created a niche in the tribal education landscape of the country. However, the scheme was revamped in 2018 to improve the geographical outreach of the programme and introduce several qualitative changes to improve learning outcomes in the schools.

Currently there are 588 schools sanctioned across the country in 28 States/UT with around 73391 students enrolled in the Schools. Another 152 schools shall be sanctioned by the year 2022. Details of the schools can be seen on the dashboard of the Ministry available at www.dashboard.tribal.gov.in.

Source: “MoU signed with 21 States/UTs for better functioning of Eklavya Model Residential Schools”, Ministry of Tribal Affairs (PIB Delhi), 01 February 2021
URL: https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1694272
Date Visited: 17 January 2022

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“Health spending by the Indian government as percentage of GDP has long been one of the lowest for any major country, and the public health system is chronically dismal.” – Pranab Bardhan in “The two largest democracies in the world are the sickest now” | Learn more: Scroll.in, 24 August 2020 >>

India is designated as the melting pot of so many ethnic groups dwelling at the same time under the common umbrella of a unified nation. Among these varied ethnic groups, some of them have been categorized under article 342 (1) of the constitution and have been labelled as Scheduled Tribe. In the post independent scenario, several schemes for upliftment of STs were run by the government but it was found that all these groups did not come up to the same level of development. Some of them were at much lower strata than others. Thus, in order to ensure the development of these communities, they were, for the first time in 1975-76 (during 5th Five-year plan) and thereafter-in 1993, identified as poorest of poor among the STs and were designated as Primitive Tribal Groups and thereafter constitution of India renamed and declared as Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs). Out of the 75 particularly vulnerable tribal groups, 13 are residing in Odisha; they are becoming increasing vulnerable due to loss of their customary habitat. The health troubles of rural areas especially in the tribal areas need a unique concentration, because the tribal people have typical health problem.

Source: 2019 PhD thesis (Abstract) by Jayanta Kumar Nayak titled “Health Seeking Behaviour and Health Care Services among the Hill Kharia Mayurbhanj District Odisha”, Department of Anthropology, Central University of Orissa
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10603/257651
Date Visited: 21 May 2025