Occupation and Educational Status of Musahar

Abstract

Nepal consists with villages where most of the people live in rural area. It is a country of multi-lingual, multi-ethnic and multi religious society. One hundred and twenty six casts/ethnic groups live throughout the country. Among them Musahar is one of the small ethnic group of Nepal. Musahar are those people who have been almost isolated and neglected by the government. Musahar are basically agricultural daily waged labour. They are secluded ethnic groups of Nepal and are inhabitants of terai and inner terai. The settlement of Musahar in Bardibas Municipality in Mahottari is in considerable number with comparison to the other districts. As seen by the study, the Musahar’s socio-economic condition in Bardibas has found as illiterate, oppressed and backward. They have adopted different professions like agricultural labor, carpentry, clearer, factory labor and vivid daily waged/labor. From the ancient period they developed their own customs, arts, morals, beliefs and socio-economic institutions. The general objective of the study is to analyze the occupational and educational condition of Musahar of Bardibas Municipality in Mohattari district. The specific objectives of study are to describe the practices of occupation of Musahar community, to identify the educational status of the Musahar community in Bardibas Municipality and to identify the occupation and education related program. Primary and secondary data were used for the study. Primary data were collected through interview, key informant survey and observation method in the field and secondary data were collected from Municipality office, private agencies, government offices, and various published and unpublished report. There are 7869 household in the Municipality among them 50 households of Musahar's community were taken as sample for the study. Musahar community is clustered, disadvantaged, backward, marginalized, dogmatic, patriarchal and separated from other caste settlement. Occupation of Musahars includes agricultural labour (28%), daily wages(42%), business(14%), foreign remittance (8%), driver (8%). Average household size of Musahar people is 5.85 higher than national level. No any single household occupies registered land. All most everybody are landless. Literacy rate of Musahar people is 43 percent (male 22.68% and female 19.38) only vii and 57% is illiterate. The dropout rate of Musahar student is 34% and 55% Musahar students used to escape from the school. The Musahar people spends 46% on food, 12% on alcohol, 6% on education in average of their income. Due to the influence of ―Phadiyas‖ and other high casts some significant changes are seen in education, health sector, sanitations, economic activities and way of life style of Musahar community in Bardibas Municipality. Based upon the findings the paper suggests some recommendations to increase occupational and educational condition of Musahar in Bardibas Municipality. It mainly highlights the low literacy rate of Musahar people. So there should be special incentive to the children of this tribe for education. They were not trained in any vocational guidance so proper training for mobilization of internal resources is required.