Resumen de ICT based learning strategies for Educating nomads

Yogesh Kulkarni, Madhav Gaikwad

• Nomads all over the world have a glorious past. About 6% of Indian population is nomadic. Large numbers of children never go to school. Educating nomads and settling them in alternative vocation is needed to bring them into the main stream. Much is said on this on various platforms but with very little is done in this direction.

  The author and his team in collaboration with KReSIT, IIT-Bombay are trying to evolve a learning methodology for the nomadic children. This paper describes an attempt to find an “out of box” solution to the problem of educating nomads. The new, developing ICT technology provides hope to provide quality education to nomadic students within their life style, at the place of their stay and time of their choice. The author is working with four tribes in Maharashtra.

  Wandering Schools were started with the following four tribes:

  1.Medhangi Jogi: Fortune teller, who tells the fortune using holy bull.

  2. Masan Jogi: Tribes which stay near crematorium and survive on the offerings made on the dead bodies.

  3. Paradhi: They are hunters. Also labeled as criminal tribes.

  4. Gopal: They perform various physical exercises.

  A model based on solar powered laptops for nomadic schools is being tried. Several available multimedia contents were collected and instructions are given to the students using multimedia. It is observed that a combination of educational strategies, including that of ICT’s, will be useful in educating nomads.

  Some more time and work is needed to comment and describe the results and propose a model for the future. However, initial test gives assurance that efforts will bring fruit.