Palghar teacher translates books into Warli dialect for tribal kids

With a view to make learning easy for hundreds of tribal students in and around Palghar, a school teacher from a zilla parishad school in Palghar has translated all the school text books in the local dialect. Rajan Garud, who teaches at the zilla parishad school in Khorichapada in Palghar district, has translated the study material in Warli — which is the local dialect of the tribal community residing in the area. 

Garud recently exhibited his unique teaching experiment at the Shikshanaachi Wari — an initiative of the state education department showcasing innovative teaching methods held in Ratnagiri. “All the students that come to our school belong to the Warli community and speak their local dialects. For them, any other language, including Marathi, is like a foreign language. Due to this language barrier , they find it difficult to cope with studies. In order to aid the whole learning process , I came up with the idea of translating textbooks into their local language,” said Garud. 

In the beginning, Garud translated the textbooks for class 1 and self published those books. He then slowly began teaching all the concepts in different subjects with the help of the local language. “Before teaching A for Apple, we taught kids different alphabets through words in the local language. Slowly, we then transitioned from Warli to Marathi and then English.” 

Garud now plans to expand his work to other regional dialects and encourage teachers from other schools take up similar initiatives. 

“There are many such communities which find it difficult to study due to the language barrier.  If such language-friendly material is made available to all, it would be a great thing for encouraging education,” he said.