Other Education - The Journal of Educational Alternatives ISSN 2049-2162 Volume 3 (2014), Issue 1 · pp.89-95

OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS

Barefoot College, Tilonia: Interview with Teja Ram By Gregor Lang-Wojtasik, September 2013

The Barefoot College, Tilonia, or One of the most prominent Social Work Research Centre, was aspects of The Barefoot College is its founded in 1972 by young academics holistic, democratic and participatory around Bunker Roy and continues approach concerning education and today. These academics in the 70s society. Night-schools and Bal Sansad were interested to learn from people (children’s parliament) are models for in dry and down-trodden villages of alternative approaches in learning rural (North-Western part processes and offer chances of of ) and exchange knowledge on education to children out of school sustainable challenges of society. due to various reasons. The work at the college starts at Gregor Lang-Wojtasik used the the grassroots of society. It focuses on example of SWRC night-schools and the belief of existing talents and the Bal Sansad in in his paper presented potential of people in the villages to last year at the European Union solve various problems for Democratic Education Conference themselves. (EUDEC). He has been acquainted The main activities encompass with this NGO since 1997, when he solar energy to support appropriate included it in his research sample for ways of self-reliance, community his PhD on non-formal education in health to reduce child and maternal India and Bangladesh (Lang-Wojtasik mortality, water harvesting to 2001). redevelop the main basis of life, He has maintained contact with women’s upliftment to support the college for the last 16 years and gender-equality, rural handicraft to took the chance during his last visit to promote traditional structures of rural India in September 2013 to have an survival and value beauty as well as interview with Teja Ram, age 47, a communication especially through member of the Education section at puppetry, which is useful to raise SWRC and the founder of Mantan consciousness about social change. (‘purity’), an NGO working in a very

Gregor Lang-Wojtasik Weingarten University [email protected] 89 OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS Interview with Teja Ram

salty area of the state of Rajasthan, TR: Yes, since 1997 I worked with being part of the big SWRC-network. the children. In the beginning there was only 6 to 10 percent literacy in those villages of Silora Block. So Bunker Roy said that we should focus on this area for education and we should start offering resources here for education for the governmental school, for the night schools at Barefoot College, for the children’s’ parliament, everything. But you know, when we reached there and I used to go to villages, had a meeting and talked about the education, people said “Education is ok, but what do you think about the water and there is no water, but we stay in the villages. What will we do? So think about the water.” One of the first actions of Barefoot College was to deal with the challenge of salty water. The area is near to one of the biggest salt lakes of Asia and ground Teja Ram water is totally salty. People had to bring the drinking-water from 8 to 10 Gregor Lang-Wojtasik (GLW): You kilometers away. are running an organization called GLW: So dealing with this was their Mantan. That means to find purity. main issue? Purity of life? TR: Yes, then we started to work on Teja Ram (TR): Yes… everything. the traditional things to do with water Purity in the whole development, harvesting that are to be built in the purity in lifestyle, and how we live or school. So the children can survive think. We believe that it’s important and they can stay in the school. to sit together, discuss and then find a Otherwise the teacher would have said direction of work which doesn’t “Ok, there’s no water, please go hamper with beliefs. home.” GLW: Tilonia is already a very So we stated building water drought-ridden area, but now you are stations at the schools together with working even in a salted area. That the community and we are also means the ground water is salted and working with the individual families. you need to find ways to solve the So that the old people and the young water problems in a different way. girls can use the water for health and survival. We also collect the surface

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Gregor Lang-Wojtasik water for animals and ground water now known as a technical centre by recharge. We were making big tanks the Indian government. So people to collect the rain water and we also come from all over the world. Women used to set up reverse osmosis plant in can come here, stay for six months. some villages. So we reverted the They can get the training and go back salty water to the sweet water. That to their villages and develop electrical means we work for the education as capacity [through solar power]. well as water. GLW: I remember that before 1997 GLW: For me it sounds very much in Tilonia, government schools were like a Freirean approach then handed over to SWRC. Is this still the concerning generative themes. That case? means water is the problem as you TR: No, at that time they were said and you start with the water and Shiksha Karmi schools but now the then combine the education. government has taken over Shiksha TR: Yes. Karmi schools. At present we are GLW: That means you try to running night schools at different implement the idea of Barefoot places and a day school in Tilonia College, Tilonia into the new region, campus. In Mandan campus we are but with very different issues. I running day-school only for the girls. remember my first visit to Tilonia GLW: And would you say, I mean when even it was difficult to handle. night schools have been running But the area in which you were already for a long time. Is it still a working was more difficult? successful model in the villages? TR: Yes, because that area is 200 TR: Sure, yes. Because there are kilometers from and 100 many villages that have no children at kilometers from . In the school, no staff for the school. So beginning there were no roads and no children go to another village. In some one liked to go to these villages. So hamlets people are not familiar with now the trend is slightly shifting as the schools and then we start there. there are roads and the area is After two, three years they might developing. become familiar with the idea of a GLW: We met personally the last school and we push the government to time in 1997. Now it is 2013, many start a school there. Then they open years have passed. What would you the governmental school and we start say are really the main developments the night school somewhere else. So concerning Barefoot College? Is there night schools are not just a learning or any change or is it just constant work? teaching centre for the children, but TR: The biggest change to Barefoot they are also making a good College is that its work on the solar environment for education to evolve and water is extended to all over as a social idea. India, and even beyond to Bhutan and Children, government teachers African countries. Because Tilonia is and the parents are involved in the

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education system. Night schools are to How you look at them. If you say put the education in the centre of the “Oh, just children, what will they society. Within society through night do?” But if you listen carefully and school people can monitor the take their issues seriously then it will education in an ordinary school. Thus, be a good process towards learning. they can evaluate the school and feel GLW: The world is changing rapidly the importance of education. and I remember that Barefoot College, GLW: At a conference in the Tilonia was also present at the Expo Netherlands on democratic schools, in Hannover, where the world showed where I used the example by showing up to discuss about solutions for a short movie of the Barefoot College upcoming world-challenges. That’s to show the global impact of already 13 years ago. Remembering alternative ways in education, people this, what would you say today: were very impressed to see the Bal Tilonia has a very constant model Sansad in action and they even saw always being able to reform itself. one of the prime ministers [a young What can the world learn from Tilonia woman] speaking. They said “how is concerning education? it possible that pupils, women, girls in TR: Ok, there are two important that age are able to talk like adults, things we can learn from Tilonia. In especially in the Indian community?” the field of education the main thing is Do you have an answer to that? that we are learning things not just TR: Yes, if you give a chance and a from the books and teachers. There space to children and listen carefully, are many, many things that happened politely, then they can speak. But if in the past and in the community you block yourself and you never which constitute very good create a space for children, they can’t. knowledge. So we should not reject In the Barefoot College of Tilonia our traditional knowledge. It doesn’t if there is something written from the matter if it is written in the books or children’s parliament, to the adults somewhere else; we should be open in like Bunker Roy, all of this is taken the way that traditions come always seriously. A letter from Bal Sansad’s from inside. prime minister will get the same And second thing is that, if we importance as a letter from really want to educate people, we Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister shouldn’t go with the books. You of India. So they get equal status and should sit together and talk. This is because of that it is possible. the real educational process—to teach GLW: So would you say then it’s each other. Only through books or really a question of the attitude of through the black board, or through adults in interaction with children that the school? It is not possible. Yes you allows them to learn from them? can give information and something, TR: Sure, because everywhere in the but not really education. world the children are very fair and So firstly, we promote learning talk truly, but it depends on the adults. from traditional knowledge and being

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Gregor Lang-Wojtasik open and not rejecting anybody in the you should listen to what is the world. No. If given a chance, he (sic) tradition, how they are managed for gives his best, then maybe he will be a generations, then just think afresh and good teacher. He doesn’t have any put this traditional knowledge in the kind of degree, but he has good actual situation of now. knowledge and experience. He also TR: Yes, sure. And you should not has practical knowledge. And if you reject anybody, because I have my have a space for this kind of person in way of doing things and you have your institution, in your school, in yours and I respect and can learn from your house—there is no need of any them. We both are very useful for the other institution for a special community. The biggest challenge of education. this time is school education. School So everybody in the villages have education is a very challenging thing knowledge. Every society has big in the world, because school knowledge systems and also the education is just focusing on passing process of transferring it from one exams. generation to another. The Barefoot Because of that, the children, the College follows the traditional thing, boys and girls, are cut from the labour because just like in the salty area things of the house. They just say “I where I work now, there are many am going to school. I don’t want to persons from the technological touch a cow, don’t want to make my syndicate. They say “Ok, we can do it hands dirty in the farm. I am learning with this machine, we can do it with for my school. And my learning from that machine.” But we should see that school is good for me. But what is 1000 years ago, people were already happening in my village? What is living there and were surviving. We happening in my field? What is should go and search and talk to happening nearby me? It is not people with traditional skills. They important for me. But my classroom, know very powerful things, my books, my teacher is important for sustainable things and very unique me.” things. So there are two, three things So it’s a very challenging thing! that we can learn from the Barefoot Question is: How we can link our own College, Tilonia. field, village, plantation, animal, and GLW: That’s good to know to go to everything else to our school? Yes, an older generation and also to learn books are very important, but your from the past. You say water is really tree, your animal, your field are as the main challenge. That is, I think, important as your books. Your father very clear, and even people would talk is a farmer, you say that he is now about wars, because of water. illiterate, but he is highly educated Take Israel, Palestine, take other person. But you never give the African countries like Sudan or Egypt importance to the farmer, but just to and what I understand is really that the teacher, who only knows that

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2+2=4. Your father as a farmer knows farmer. So the farmer will respect how to produce 100 kilos of grain. He them. In India it is not like that. is a very important person. Farmers are dependent on the market So, how we can link these things, and government policies which are school and the practical life or real not in favour of farmers. This is life? Right now, School life and your discouraging for farming as a real life are totally different. So we profession connect the both. School life without GLW: We are talking about farmers, your real life is totally empty and vice so that means we listen or we read versa. It should be together, it should about the farmers especially in South be linked. East India committing suicide, GLW: You have been to foreign because of big problems. Does that countries and you have been to happen also in Rajasthan? Germany for example! You have seen TR: No, but sometimes the farmers also the village side in Germany! face difficulties. Because sometimes What would you say is a generative like now there are very huge crops to theme in Germany? What could it be? grow. And the stock market exchange TR: I visited some places of farmers rate is very low. So they will be in and there I found that the government loss. Government should make a of Germany is a very respectful, very standard rates, so that they can polite for the farmer. They don’t want survive. When I spent 10,000 rupees to destroy anything from the farmer. for something and now I get only They just promote or justify the sale, 5000 rupees from market, I lose 5000 just to protect the farmer—if I rupees. Right now the government understand that right. should take action. Ok, if you spent So this is very different In India. 10,000 rupees, your crop shouldn’t be Farmers just grow from the field and below 11,000 rupees, to get at least they will give something to you. You 1000 profit. are in the professional world like a GLW: In Tilonia I see constant scientist or something. You are sitting shipments, exporting out of the state here on your own, but you can’t take of Rajasthan, running worldwide milk from the meadow, not meat from maybe. Because the idea is just from the meadow, not onion—nothing. It the grassroots—starting from what just comes from the field. And we people know, starting from what they should protect that person. And in have and trying to give them an Germany, if I understand rightly, it is opening of the horizon, including the protected. And so the farmer or the whole community to come forward in village person they are very, very a way; in a way the community can linked with the other educated decide the speed for themselves. persons. They are sitting in the office, Comparing the situation now with the they are sitting somewhere else in the 1990s I understand that the style of cities, but they are very respectful, work is remaining and it’s not because they are really careful to the changing.

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Gregor Lang-Wojtasik

TR: Yes, because though Tilonia is GLW: I have one more question now “going global,” it is still deep concerning the Bal Sansad. You are rooted in the villages. The night now working at another place. Is there school with the midwifes, hand-pump a special Bal Sansad in that area or is mechanics, with the small farmer, it still the whole Tilonia block all water harvesting, statues for the together? children, with the handicrafts, the TR: All together. There is a children’s rural artisans. These still are important parliament covering the whole of things for the Barefoot College though Rajasthan. The prime minister is still we are working also in the African elected for two and a half years and and American countries, Afghanistan, still a girl is the prime minister. Pakistan and somewhere else, but Bunker Roy is the president of the rooted still here. And one more point parliament and I’m the secretary of is that change is a long journey. It the prime minister. All ministers have takes time. a secretary. For example the health GLW: Puppetry is also going on? minister has Dr. Battacharya as Joachim Cha-Cha giving lectures? secretary and so on. TR: Yes. GLW: Thank you for your time and the exchange.

More information: http://www.barefootcollege.org/

Interviewer details: Dr. Gregor Lang-Wojtasik, Prof. of Educational Science (Education of Difference) at University of Education, Weingarten, has visited India for the last 26 years, being interested in alternative approaches of basic education and social change in the tradition of M.K. Gandhi and Vinoba Bhave. Address: Studiendekan der Fakultät I, PH Weingarten/University of Education, Kirchplatz 2 - D-88250 Weingarten, Germany. Email: langwojtasik@ph- weingarten.de

This work by Gregor Lang-Wojtasik.is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported

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