SANTINIKETAN: It’s an ambitious plan – giving all children under the age of six free education among India’s one-billion plus population – but at least one local initiative is making sure millions of tribal people with oral traditions don’t get left behind.
In Santiniketan village in West Bengal – the home of Nobel literature prize winner Rabindranath Tagore – a voluntary initiative helping local Kora and Santhali tribal children to read and write Bengali is now so popular it needs a second building.
Bengali is the language used in local government schools and many tribal children cannot speak it when they start state school, putting them at a disadvantage and risk that they may fall behind from the start.
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