Chhattisgarh and Texas have something in common. Both have Hispanics whose learning abilities are quite similar, according to a survey conducted by the Chhattisgarh government.
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Though historical evidence is scanty, it is believed that people of Spanish descent reached Chhattisgarh 300 years ago as workers, probably with the British. They settled in small hamlets in remote parts of tribal Chhattisgarh and even today follow age-old Mexican traditions, according to a Chhattisgarh government official.
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For the first time, a similarity was traced between them and Hispanics in Texas via a radio-learning programme. "It was not intentional but accidental," the official conceded. After the results of a pilot project in Bastar and Kanker districts were finalised it were matched with similar study in Texas in the early 1990s. "The results were strikingly same," he informed. Texas has huge population of Spanish descent.
The idea of a pilot project to gauge the learning ability of Hispanics was formulated in 2005 after the success of 'English for Fun' programmes in the state. "We wanted to know whether radio lessons improve learning ability or not. Those who were of Hispanic origins were chosen as literacy among them is higher then other tribals and they could speak both English and Spanish," said Vijay Kumar Ratre, a local coordinator of the project.
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The government prepared 120 radio lessons on food, hygiene and nutrition in English and Spanish with bits and pieces of local culture thrown in. "If the lesson was on how to make better tortillas, we kept in mind the way tortillas are cooked in Bastar or Kanker district of Chhattisgarh," said a regional coordinator of Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, which was also part of the project.
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The government prepared 120 radio lessons on food, hygiene and nutrition in English and Spanish with bits and pieces of local culture thrown in. "If the lesson was on how to make better tortillas, we kept in mind the way tortillas are cooked in Bastar or Kanker district of Chhattisgarh," said a regional coordinator of Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, which was also part of the project.
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The English version was broadcasted for five days a week on All India Radio and in Spanish on a radio station provided for Bastar and Kanker. Of the 175 Hispanics, 51 per cent spoke who both English and Spanish and the rest who spoke only Spanish, listened to the radio lessons.
Similar project in Texas in the early 1990s had comparable findings. "Fifty five-minute radio episodes increased awareness of chronic disease among Hispanics in Texas, and 39 per cent of them acted to improve their health, similar to the trend recorded in Chhattisgarh," said Ratre.
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Education through radio has been largely successful in four states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka. Two levels of 'English is Fun' have already been broadcasted through AIR stations.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
