This is a story of two schools. Both are in the same area, embedded in the same community. But there are key differences which offer an insight into how the process of mainstreaming poor tribal children happens in stages, with both the formal and non-formal support structures being equally important.
It is customary to visit a school during the day but we go to the informal school at Ghagiasahi, a tribal hamlet around a kilometre from the Sukinda chromite mines of Tata Steel in Odisha’s Jajpur district, after dark. Once we get there we know why. There. . .
