A small experiment to understand why 92 pc adivasi students don't make it to the university

Back in October 2019, Mumbai University pro-vice-chancellor Prof. Ravindra Kulkarni stated, at a national conference on sustainable development at S.D.D. College, Wada located in Palghar district of Maharashtra, that the enrollment rate of Mumbai University for Palghar district is just 8 percent.

Palghar is a district highly populated by tribal communities and sadly also known for its highly undernourished child population. Where the remaining 92 per cent of the kids in the district go after Higher Secondary education was the question of concern.

In an attempt to figure out the reason behind the low rate of enrollment, Me, along with my student Harshal Kudu planned and surveyed 100 boys and 100 girls who are taking their Higher Secondary Education in Wada town. All the surveyed students were the ones who travel daily from other villages and Adivasi padas (tribal hamlets) of this region. The survey was carried out at Wada Bus Stand.

The completion of the survey not only found the answer to the original question, or but also a few more issues that are going unnoticed by most of us when it comes to rural education.

The data analysis and interpretation has been divided into three parts namely - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

1. The Good

The 2011 Census shows that Maharashtra's average literacy rate in rural parts was 77.01 percent. While male literacy was at 85.15 percent, female literacy was lagging behind at just 64.80 percent. While there wasn’t any data available on literacy primary-secondary-higher education group-wise but it seemed certain that the 2021 Census will show drastic growth in the rural literacy rate (Higher Secondary).

Image Caption: Maharashtra State Literacy. (Source: Census 2011)

There is at least a primary Zilha Parishad school in many of the Adivasi padas of Tansa and Palghar. Boys and girls travel 20-30 kilometres daily to take Secondary and Higher Secondary education. This is very uplifting news for teachers.

The survey showed that both boys, as well as girls, are aiming to take further education. Girls are mostly interested in doing nursing, DMLT, and ITI courses while boys are leaning more towards engineering and ITI respectively.

2. The Bad

Students come to Wada from long distances for education. But the reality of how far, was something that this survey pointed out. 

Few villages Students travel from (Tool: Google Earth)

As you can see, Wada is like a centre for Higher Secondary Education. Students from all the sides and directions come here just to study in class XI and XII. The polygon on the map above covers an area of 623 sq. Kilometres. And this is surely not an accurate representation of the region as you can see some villages are barely under the polygon. Had more subjects been surveyed, the results would have been more baffling than they already are.

So, these kids on average travel 30 Km every day just for Higher Secondary education. Few of them travel just six Kms. Some other few travel as much as 92 Km daily.

These kids don't have the luxury of choice. They have to come to Wada for HSC education.

Here are all the HSC colleges in this region. (Sources for this information are students themselves)

Higher Secondary colleges in the region

This is 623 sq. km area and there are only four choices for kids and kids only prefer two of them because of financial issues. There are few Government Ashram Shalas in areas like Gargaon and Tuse which provide Higher Secondary education but the students said that the education quality isn't as good. 

So, why is the enrollment rate so low?

Courses the students are going for

Higher Education Colleges in the Region

Students don't have enough colleges or courses to apply. And a bachelor's degree has very little chances of taking you anywhere in regards to the job. Their financial status is not optimal to take education further, they have to find a job and start earning money as soon as possible so they choose courses that have a higher chance of getting a job. This goes both for boys and girls.

Most boys apply for a 1 or 2 year ITI course. Once done with the course, they apply, join for a job in industries either in Boisar, Kudus or Bhiwandi region. They get a  starting pay of around Rs 8,000 for these jobs.

Girls, on the other hand, join the nursing college located in Wada, and after completion join hospitals where the starting pay is Rs 6,000.

Out of the 200 surveyed, 37 percent of students have said that they will take further education after HSC but haven't decided the course yet. This was seen more in girls (47 percent) than in boys (27 percent).

3. The Ugly

How much time should a student spend on traveling daily for Higher Secondary education? Ideally half an hour, maximum should be an hour, right?

Let's see how much time students in this area have to spend on travelling.

The whole backbone of transportation in this region is the State Transport Buses. Students have to totally rely on buses to reach college and home unless they can afford other forms of transportation such as rickshaws, Magic vehicles or jeeps.

These kids daily spend two-three hours more waiting for their bus to arrive when going home. In the morning, the majority of them have to catch buses timed at 6 am while the time used for actual transportation is just half an hour or one hour. The frequency of buses is two to three hours on average to these locations which creates another issue, that is, swarming in buses. 

Adding more buses is not a good alternative because economically it will be unwise, but changing the timing of buses to match college timing is. This will reduce the one and a half hours spent by most students in the morning in addition to two-three hours spent waiting in the afternoon, thus allowing them to follow other interests and do other activities. Buses are usually delayed for half an hour or for an hour, sometimes even more. Sometimes, students have to storm the control room window and demand a bus to be called from the depot.

Many villages like Bhopivali, Indgaon, and Masroli have one or two buses to connect them with Wada. Buses such as Ambai and Khardi are unreliable and get canceled frequently. The condition of roads here is good except for a few parts but those are being reconstructed and the transportation will be much better once the work is finished. However, in heavy rains of October 2019, part of the road connecting Khardi and Wada got damaged- broken into parts. For four months, the bus transportation in this area was on halt.

While the original plan was to gather all the data from schools and colleges of Wada, we could not get response from four of the five principals of the two schools, two junior colleges and one degree college in Wada town that he had contacted.

Due to this, we sadly got only 200 students for data collection. Moreover, the one Principal who was present at the college read my letter tried to demotivate me calling the exercise futile and useless. He told me that the Government does not give permission for starting new colleges. We checked the Ministry of Human Resource Development's website for such an act or rule or Gazette notification but I found no rules and regulations. Then I contacted a Government official working in Jawhar region's Tribal Development Department but he said that you can start a college given that you have enough student strength.

While this whole exercise did finally find the answer to where 92 percent of students go, this search also raised a few questions which can only be solved by the collective efforts of the State Education authority, State Transport and active participation of the rural community in rural development programmes.

Mumbai University has understood various issues the students face in the Palghar region and has planned to construct a new office in Palghar for the convenience of students as well as teachers and college office staff. The University is also planning to introduce courses to which the kids here would find more relatable such as Tribal arts.

What can you do to help? Well, if you ever travel in these areas by bus and you see kids from class IV-V standing with those heavy school bags on their back; give a little space on your seat for them to sit. Such small generosity can help the kids to be more attentive at school.