Schooling of Terai Dalit Girls of Dhanusha District in Nepal
Date
2021
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Faculty of Education
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
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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
Description
Keywords
Dalit girls, Sociological theories