Education for nomads

It is hard to envision that there are still groups of people in Pakistan who live nomadic lives, like Gujjar nomads, during their twice-yearly migrations. An alternate bivouacking under the stars every single night.

These individuals seldom consume meat, consuming mostly milk, yogurt, cheese and pabulum, wild plants which they accumulate from their surroundings, while recognizing that they should never reap excessively from one spot.

Millions of Pakistanis have abnegated their right to education due to poverty, vulnerability, lack of services, spatial isolation and conflicts. Nomads, in particular, are subject to marginalization that renders their children’s formal education difficult.

Education frameworks and curricula don’t regard such groups of people’s multifarious cultures. There are barely any educators who talk their dialects and their schools frequently need essential materials. Instructive materials that give exact and reasonable information on nomadic groups and their lifestyles are especially uncommon.

The contrast in access to education between nomadic and non-nomadic students is stark. The way forward requires active involvement of community and all stakeholders and initiative keeping in view the requirements of nomadic students.

Bakarwal Mobile Schools (BMS)

“The Bakarwal people have lived a nomadic life for generations and find it to be an intrinsic aspect of their culture and identity.  Due to rapid population growth, inflation, and increased restrictions to public grazing areas, they are finding this traditional way of life is under threat.  At the same time, due to the structure and content of the current education system, Bakarwal nomads remain largely illiterate and at an economic disadvantage due to a lack of relevant educational opportunities” says Brandon Baughn, Director BMS.

This is particularly problematic for those forced out of nomadic shepherding and, as a result, having to move to marginal land on the outskirts of cities.  The only options for Bakarwal nomads to educate their children is to either abandon their traditional way of life and settle in the outskirts of town, or send their children away to Madrassas.  Such practices may lead to a loss of their ethnic and linguistic identities and throw them into a cycle of poverty. By adapting education to the needs of Bakarwal nomads, such as training literate men and women from the Bakarwal community to work as literacy instructors and providing a mother-tongue (Gojri) curriculum, this vibrant culture can be preserved.  In the event that nomadic families do choose to settle in cities, education equips them for success.  With this in mind, BMS promotes a philosophy of “Every Shepherd a Scholar, Every Scholar a Shepherd.” This way nomadic communities are able to maintain their culture and simultaneously achieve progress through education.

To educate the Gujjar Bakarwal community Mr Wayne E. Losey has taken the initiative of educating both children and adults of this community in northern areas of Pakistan and Kashmir. He has also written a thesis called, “Writing Gojri: Linguistic and Sociolinguistic constraints on a standardized orthography for the Gujars of South Asia”. In 2007 BMS initiated a proper educational system for migrant Bakarwal children and adults in Northern Pakistan. With the specific goal to address their needs, BMS made a mobile educating framework geared towards a shepherd-specific, primary language educational module.

This methodology ensures that children develop respect for their own dialect

Almost 400 children in 30 Bakarwal settlements and bivouacs are acquiring skills of writing and reading, in their own accent, Gojri, with basic classes in Urdu. This multi-lingual methodology of training ensures that children comprehend the instructor’s guidelines, as well as develop respect for their own dialect.

Adapting to their unique set of conditions; BMS received a model which prepares men and women, themselves wanderers, with the skills to instruct their youngsters.

This educational program is expected to reduce destitution and substance abuse, and increase knowledge of women’s reproductive health issues, thereby increasing their ability to participate within the mainstream system of the state, empowering women, and most significantly assisting in the conservation of an endangered indigenous dialect. This will also help the wider society by allowing for self-sustenance of the community and its constituent individuals, thus aiding this community’s self-realization, a right of every free citizen.

Haroon Janjua is Freelance Journalist. He tweets @JanjuaHaroon