Schooling of Terai Dalit Girls of Dhanusha District in Nepal

Abstract

The present study focuses on schooling practices of Terai Dalit girls of Dhanusha district in Nepal, who, for centuries, have been treated as paninachalne tatha chhunanahune Jat (An untouchable caste). The main objective of the study was to explore Dalit girls’ access to basic education by assessing their schooling practices. The research has therefore analyzed issues and challenges related to schooling of Dalit girls to derive implications to improve their schooling practices. The study has used both quantitative and qualitative research design to collect primary information from the research participants and schools. Primary information was collected from four head teachers, eight teachers, 48 students and their parents (48) using a number of instruments: interview guidelines, focus group discussion guidelines and school profile form. The collected data were presented in the forms of tables, figures, charts and graphs to facilitate the process of analysis and interpretation. The data were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The researcher collected primary data from four out of 22 community schools of Janakpurdham submet ropolitan area of Dhanusha district that recorded dominant presence of Dalit girls who were more than 100 in each of the sample schools. Parents’ poor economic status, teachers’ behavior, poor participation in extracurricular and co-curricular activities, inadequate tutorial support at school and home, and small presence of Dalit female teachers, all contributed to have their poor access to basic education. Besides, engagement in domestic chores and agricultural work, age-old inappropriate social and religious practices, and parental illiteracy were vii

the other challenges to their schooling. Addtionally, social pressure on early marriage, dowry system, and lack of vision for further study were the other challenges. Changes in schooling of Dalit girls resulted in the development of self confidence and positive images of self with their effort to bring their learning

knowledge into practice in their day to day life.

Support services like tutorial support by parents at home, providing sufficient time to children’s learning, helping them to do their homework, or managing special time for difficult parts of their study were little done by parents. Schools, communities and families were expected to address challenges of Dalit girl students but their awareness level, which is increasing due to their schooling, is to be raised at a faster speed to enable them to fight against the neglect of their rights. Number of female teachers should be increased, particularly female Dalit teachers are to be encouraged to join teaching profession in order to inspire other Dalit girls for ensuring their equitable access to education. Improvement of schooling practices of Dalit girls calls for several efforts at multiple fronts: social protection programs, guarantee of minimum level of employment, skill development training programs to improve their employability skills, and setting of equity-based targets to narrow down the disparities. Programs and policies to address gender discrimination and gender-based challenges, teachers’ awareness about their roles and responsibilities, remedial instruction to ensure that all the Dalit girls learn not just the foundational skills but also the transferable skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, advocacy and conflict resolution, could be the other supportive measures to improve the schooling practices of Terai Dalit girls.

___________________ Gyanee Yadav PhD Research Scholar