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Untitled Document
The author has known Eklavya for many years through his parents
and teachers, and through Eklavya's children's magazine
'Chakmak'. In the past one year he has visited Eklavya at
Hoshangabad and worked with them.
The Eklavya Legend
The legend is well known. Eklavya, a Bhilyouth, wanted to learn the art of archery. He approached Dronacharya, guru
of the Pandavas, but to no avail. So he decided to master the art
on his own. He watched Dronacharya imparting lessons to his
pupils and followed these instructions on his own. In the physical
absence of a guru, he made an earthen bust of Dronacharya,
paying due homage to it in the classical guru-shishya parampara.
The keen sighted, intelligent youth soon became more than
proficient in the use of bow and arrow. His remarkable skill
inevitably came to the notice of Arjuna, the star pupil of
Dronacharya, and Arjuna asked his guru to investigate.
Dronacharya discovered the master archer to be none other
than Eklavya. The Bhil youth was in the act of paying homage to
Dronacharya's image. So the guru demanded his dakshina (fee),
asking for Eklavya's thumb. With not a moment's hesitation,
Eklavya sliced off his thumb and placed it at the feet of his guru.
The story is often quoted as a supreme example of this
tradition. But it is open to several interpretations. Why did
Dronacharya refuse to teach Eklavya? Why did he demand the
right thumb as guru-dakshina? One interpretation is that
Dronacharya refused to take Eklavya as a pupil because he was
a lowly tribal and archery was the preserve of the upper class warriors. When this tribal acquired the skill on his own and
posed a threat to Arjuna himself, Dronacharya nipped the
challenge in the bud by demanding the thumb, so crucial to
the art of archery. It is also said that Eklavya subsequently
learned to use the bow and arrow without his thumb and soon
reached his earlier level of proficiency. In fact, it is said that
Bhils hold the arrow to the bow without the help of the thumb
to this day.
The Eklavya legend forces us to question the exclusiveness
of education. It also inspires self-effort to master skills and
knowledge. The legend permeates the philosophy of the Eklavya
group, which has taken the name of this remarkable youth for
itself. The Eklavya group's endeavour is to assist Eklavyas of
today to refuse to part with their thumbs.
Eklavya's inception and growth
Eklavya was the response of a group of young scholars in
India, who felt strongly that the education they had received
should be shared with the disadvantaged. Turning their backs
on career and position, they gathered together in a small town
in Madhya Pradesh to explore what needed to be done for
science education in rural India. Eklavya grew out of three
beliefs:
- that meaningful innovation in education is possible only
by bringing together professionals, teachers and children
- that it is necessary and possible to change the functioning
of the government for implementing innovations on a large
scale
- that science and technology are not esoteric spheres of
thought and activity but should be rooted in people's
knowledge and understanding and addressed to their needs.
Eklavya's first school programme (Hoshangabad Science
Teaching Program - HSTP) was started in 1972. It was an
experimental programme, run in sixteen middle schools of
Hoshangabad. district, Madhya Pradesh, by people at Friends
Rural Centre and Kishore Bharati. Additional resource support was provided by Delhi University, TIFR, IITs and colleges of
Madhya Pradesh.
Eklavya was registered in October 1982 under the Societies
Registration Act of t 860 as a non-profit voluntary organization.
It presently works in several districts of Madhya Pradesh through
field centres in the state and a co-ordination centre at Bhopal.
The main areas of work are innovations in school education,
publication of educational literature, science-society issues, and
facilitating participatory development. Eklavya's resource group
consists of subject experts, field level workers, and college and school teachers.
Eklavya's Work
- Eklavya has evolved innovative curriculum, teaching
methodologies and educational material for Science, Social
Science and Primary Education:
- Science: The school science program (Hoshangabad Science
Teaching Program - HSTP) was started in 1972. Presently
over 500 schools are covered, with 80000 students each
year in classes 6,7 and 8. There are over 2000 trained
teachers and around 200 resource teachers.
- Social Science: Curriculum and textbooks have been
developed in social science for classes 6, 7 and 8. Presently
this program is being run, on an experimental basis, as a
pilot project in eight middle schools.
- Primary School: Initially, this program was run, on an
experimental basis, as a pilot project in 25 primary schools,
including tribal schools. Presently, the program is being
field tested in over t 20 schools encompassing a whole block
of Shahpur in Betul district.
Eklavya intensively tests these programs under field
conditions and constantly revises them on the basis of feedback
collected. It seeks to implement these innovations on a large
scale through government structures like government schools.
It also seeks to strengthen such innovations across the country
by networking with other groups and agencies.
- It publishes magazines and books on science-society issues
for children, teachers and general readers. Libraries
function at most centres of Eklavya. Some of Eklavya's
publications are:
Magazines:
- Sandarbh - focuses on issues of interest to teachers and
educationalists; bi-monthly.
- Chakmak - monthly children's science magazine
- Srote - science feature service; sends weekly
dispatches to over 200 local newspapers, radio
and television stations; it is also published in
the form of a monthly magazine
- Textbooks - Textbooks and workbooks for the various
educational programs are designed and
produced.
- Booklets - Several booklets for children are published for
popularizing science. Plays, stories and poems
for children, and writing by children are also
published.
- Translations - Translations in Hindi, of classics in education,
are published for adult readers.
- Children's Activity Centres - run by children's groups
- provide a space for children to do various activities like
science experiments, origami, painting etc. Children in
these groups often conduct 'bal-melas'. Plays and dramas
have also been staged at various places. Children running
these centres are given regular training through monthly
workshops and meetings.
- Eklavya also looks at rural health issues and rural
technologies. Surveys have been done on traditional health
practices by women and also on home remedies.
Workshops and awareness programs are conducted on
health education. Eklavya has initiated programs in
fisheries, leatherwork by artisans, low cost construction,
watershed development etc.
- Eklavya's Planning and Development programme is an
effort to evolve and tryout innovative models of microlevel
planning in the rural areas. Some of the core ideas in
this program are to support community organizations to
strengthen the participative process, link community
organizations with panchayats to strengthen gram-sabha
functioning, attempt an integrated approach for activities
with a focus on education, health and natural resources,
and enable the setting up of a Panchayat Resource Centre
that will act as a backbone to the planning, training and
strengthening process in panchayats.
The Challenges Ahead
In the past years, Eklavya has demonstrated the
effectiveness of innovative programs. This comes along with a
lot of other people and groups involved in alternatives. The
need today is to combine all these alternative efforts and try to
influence mainstream education. This is a complex and
challenging exercise involving public opinion, mainstream
institutions responsible for education and political opinion. This
is a task which cannot be accomplished by anyone group or
organization, but by pooling together all that has been done in
this direction.
The future agenda of Eklavya, therefore, includes providing
resource support to a growing number of institutions and nongovernment
organizations working in education in different
parts of the country. With its long experience in academic and
administrative aspects of education, Eklavya is suitably prepared
to take this role.
The text of this report is from an Eklavya publication: 'EKLAVYA - AN
INTRODUCTION'
Eklavya can be contacted at: EKLAVYA, E- 1/25 Arera Colony,
Bhopal 462 016, Madhya Pradesh. Phone and Fax: 0755 - 563380
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