A Study of an Educational Status of the Blacksmith of Ward No. 1, Manapang VDC, Tanahun

Abstract

The present dissertation focuses on the educational status of the Blacksmith in ward no 1, Manapang VDC,Tanahun.Education is the important infrastructure of development. The main function of education is to prepare the capable human resource required for the country. For the development of individual, society and eventually of the country, education plays vital role. However, all the people are not under the coverage of education. People especially poor and Dalits are out of the access of education. There is not easy access of education to the poor, Dalits and disadvantaged people. Several research findings show that most of the people out of the school are from disadvantage and backward group. The disadvantaged groups are those groups who are in general economically weak, socially backward and so are deprived from other opportunities. Poverty, lack of awareness, social domination are some of the factors which are reported to be the causes of discouragement to those disadvantaged group from attending school. When one group of society is weak the whole system, society and eventually the country becomes imbalance owing to the retardation in the development process of the country. The Blacksmith people are considered to be dominated, exploited and lowly behaved in Nepalese society. In this context, the present research with the objective of appraising the educational status of the Blacksmith has been carried out in 35 household of the Blacksmith community with the observation, household interview, and key informant’s interview as the primary source of data collection. The present study is concentrated on the educational status of the Blacksmith of ward no 1 of Manapang VDC of Tanahun district. This study focuses to find out the current educational status of Blacksmith with its affecting factors. It is found from the research that the Blacksmith have very poor social-economic and educational condition. They are untouchable groups. Being discriminated they have very low self-esteem. They have very low educational status.

There are 35 household settlement of Blacksmith in the study area. The total population is 173.Out of which male is 93 and female is 80.The Blacksmith are in favor of nuclear family. The economic condition of the Blacksmith is poor. The annual income of the Blacksmith is very less. 31.42 percent people earn13000-24000 yearly. The main occupation of the people is agriculture.88.57 percent people engage in agriculture. However, they have the food insufficiency.48.575 people produce food which feeds up to three months.40% people have less than two ropani land and 11.42% people are landless. The most of the people work as the share croppers. The people have the obligation to take loan from village creditors in high interest to fulfill their needs.

Regarding the educational status of Blacksmith, 25.31% people are illiterate in the study area. There is very less number of population (3.16) which are in I.A and above study. Regarding the educational enrollment of school going children, the data show that 58.31% children are in primary level, 30% are in lower secondary and 11.66% are in secondary level.

Dropout of the students from school is considered as one of the factors which reduces the efficiency in the education system. The study shows that with the increasement of the level of the grade, the dropout of the student is increasing. It is mainly due to the poor economic condition and engagement of the children in household activities. Apart from this, ignorance of the parents in education, early marriage, disinterests of the children to study are the other contributing factors to the school dropout in the Blacksmith community. Out of the total dropout students, 33.33% are seen in grade eight and same in grade ten. On the question to the poor educational status of the Blacksmith, 57% believed that poverty is the main factor, 23% believed in the educational discrimination and 20% believed in the lack of awareness. It is from the study found that the traditional attitude of the Blacksmith in education has under gone a change. They have now seriously realized the importance of education. However, it is the fact that due to poor economic status, they are not able to get their children continues the study. Along with the poverty, lack of awareness of the parents on the importance of education, educational discrimination in the school has played the key roles for the poor educational status of the Blacksmith children. Dropout of the Students from school is considered as one of the factors which reduces efficiency in the educational system. The dropout problem is seen above primary level. Poor economic condition, lack of awareness and the engagement of the children in household activities are the factors responsible for dropout.

Recommendations like the awareness programs about the importance of education, conduction of the poverty alleviation programs in the Blacksmith community, motivational programs from the school to inspire the children to continue study are seen to be conducted to strengthen the educational status of the Blacksmith attracting dropouts back to school.