India is home to over 700 tribal communities, accounting for roughly 8.6% of the country’s total population. Despite this significant presence, tribal communities have historically faced severe educational deprivation – remote geography, poverty, language barriers, and a chronic shortage of trained teachers have kept millions of children out of classrooms. Into this gap stepped Friends of Tribals Society (FTS), a volunteer-driven NGO that chose not to wait for government schools to arrive in the forest – it brought the school to the forest instead.
Table of Contents
- Origins of Friends of Tribals Society
- The Ekal Vidyalaya model: one teacher, one village, one school
- A five-fold approach to education
- Indigenous and value-based education
- Scale and reach: how FTS grew into one of India’s largest NGOs
- Recognition and corporate support
- Innovation within the model
- Why the FTS model matters for education policy
Origins of Friends of Tribals Society
Friends of Tribals Society (FTS), also known as Vanbandhu Parishad, was formally established on January 15, 1989, on the auspicious occasion of Makar Sankranti. It is registered as a Society under the West Bengal Registration of Societies Act, 1961, and is a non-profit organisation headquartered in Kolkata. But its roots go back even further.
The origin of FTS can be traced to a project called ‘Phulbani Jilla Unnayan Prakalp,’ started in 1985 for the development of the tribal community of Phulbani District in Orissa. Under this initiative, 490 schools and medical centres were created. With a desire to expand their work, the organizers invited prominent citizens of Kolkata for evaluation and advice. Moved by the poverty and living conditions of the tribal people, the Kolkata team decided to raise resources for supporting service projects – and that became the genesis of Friends of Tribals Society.
Since its inception, FTS has stressed the importance of education to bring about any change or development – viewing it as the force that empowers people, builds confidence and fraternity, and gives communities the courage to resist exploitation. This philosophy drove the organisation to launch what would become its most defining programme: the Ekal Vidyalaya.
The Ekal Vidyalaya model: one teacher, one village, one school
The centrepiece of FTS’s work is the Ekal Vidyalaya – literally meaning “single-teacher school.” To accomplish the primary aim of eradicating illiteracy, FTS started the Ekal Vidyalaya Yojna in 1989 in the rural and tribal areas of Gumla district of Jharkhand. The concept was beautifully simple: if a child cannot travel to the school, the school must travel to the child.
The Ekal Vidyalayas provide five years of free, non-formal education to children in the age group of 6-14 years. A typical school has 30-40 students taught by a local youth who has passed grades 8 or 9 and has been specifically trained. There is no formal building requirement – classes are held under a tree, in a verandah, or wherever space is available. A blackboard, a teacher, and students are all that form the classroom.
What makes this model particularly effective is its ultra-low cost. Each school runs on an annual budget of around 20,000 Indian rupees. It only costs less than $10 a week to fund an entire school. This cost-efficiency has allowed FTS to scale the model rapidly without dependence on government funding.
A five-fold approach to education
The Ekal Vidyalaya is not simply a literacy programme. An Ekal Vidyalaya imparts five-fold education: primary education, healthcare education, development education, awareness education, and Sanskar (values) education. Each pillar serves a distinct purpose in building a more self-reliant community.
Primary education covers the fundamentals. The curriculum across all Ekal schools follows a standard core of language, arithmetic, and science. Students also participate in physical education, value education, and creative arts.
Healthcare education is delivered through FTS’s affiliate, the Arogya Foundation of India. The Foundation promotes healthcare awareness through Ekal Vidyalayas, conducting health camps at cluster centres, providing medical services, distributing free medicines, and guiding women and children in marginalised communities towards healthier living.
Development education, known as Gramothan, goes beyond the classroom. Gramothan focuses on linking village communities with sustainable economic programmes using local resources – including organic farming with vermicompost, cultivating commercial crops, rainwater harvesting, and efficient packing – to reduce production costs, improve land fertility, raise incomes, and alleviate poverty.
Awareness education helps communities understand their rights. Field workers known as Sevabratis actively raise awareness about government welfare schemes and assist beneficiaries in navigating the Right to Information (RTI) application process.
Sanskar education focuses on ethics and values – discussed further in the next section.
Indigenous and value-based education
One of the most distinctive aspects of the FTS model is its deliberate integration of local culture and values into the educational framework. Rather than transplanting urban or standardised curricula into tribal villages, FTS designs its content to be rooted in the life and language of the community it serves.
A new Ekal Vidyalaya can only be started if there is a demand for it from the local people. A village committee is formed which forwards a request, and Ekal initiates its processes only after receiving such a demand. Localised curriculum is a key example of this philosophy.
Classes take place using informal modes like storytelling, folk dramas, folk songs, and religious discourses. The curriculum is taught in the local language using local incidents as examples – making it not only more accessible, but genuinely meaningful to students who might otherwise feel disconnected from a formal education that ignores their cultural identity.
The teacher, too, is part of this indigenous approach. Teachers are invariably from the same village to ensure effectiveness, preserve stability, and maintain cultural relevance. The majority of Ekal teachers are women, who serve as role models and encourage families to educate girls – a crucial factor for gender equity in deeply patriarchal tribal societies.
Value education – known as Sanskar Shiksha – is integral to the FTS approach. FTS, through its affiliate Shree Hari Satsang, prioritises Ethics and Value Education focusing on Indian culture, heritage, and values. Sanskar Kendras established by FTS facilitate various cultural practices while aiming to deter people from harmful habits like alcoholism.
The results of this integration have been documented as significant. A non-formal education experiment by Ekal Vidyalaya in Jharkhand from 1986 to 1995-96 was described as “extraordinary” – the literacy rate in Jharkhand doubled during this period, and diseases caused by unhygienic practices, witchcraft, and alcoholism declined sharply.
Scale and reach: how FTS grew into one of India’s largest NGOs
From a handful of schools in Gumla, Jharkhand, the FTS has expanded into one of the largest grassroots education movements in the world. FTS is a non-profit organisation headquartered in Kolkata, with 37 chapters in 25 states. The growth has been remarkable: as of July 2003, FTS was operating 6,966 schools with 222,775 students. By July 2007, FTS and Ekal Vidyalaya together were running over 23,000 schools.
As of December 2020, Ekal Vidyalayas were running in over 1,02,702 villages across 28 states, with an enrolment of 2.8 million students. Today, the broader Ekal Abhiyan movement – of which FTS is a major pillar – is credited with reaching well over 55,000 villages, and the combined count of operational one-teacher schools has crossed the 1 lakh mark.
FTS specifically patronises a substantial share of this network. FTS supports over 20,571 villages, constituting nearly 41% of the total number of Ekal Vidyalayas in the country. The organisation operates across states including Assam, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu, with its sister organisation Bharat Lok Shiksha Parishad (BLSP) covering the northern and north-western states.
Recognition and corporate support
FTS’s activities were acknowledged with the prestigious Gandhi Peace Prize 2017, handed over by the then-President of India Shri Ram Nath Kovind along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a function held at Rashtrapati Bhawan on 26th February 2019. This recognition placed FTS alongside global peace and humanitarian efforts, underscoring the scale and sincerity of its mission.
FTS is also registered with MCA as per the new CSR norms for taking CSR activities, and is listed as an implementing agency of CSR projects by the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs. This makes it a formal partner for companies seeking to direct their corporate social responsibility spending towards tribal education – a significant recognition in today’s policy environment.
The organisation runs entirely on a volunteer and donor model. Ekal Vidyalaya does not accept any funds from the government. Funds are raised through a diverse group of donors comprising corporates, trusts, and individuals, with each one-teacher school sponsored for INR 20,000 per year.
Innovation within the model
FTS has not remained static. Recognising the digital divide, it introduced “Ekal on Wheels” – a mobile computer lab taken into villages to provide basic digital literacy to villagers. Ekal has partnered with the Spoken Tutorials project developed at IIT Mumbai to deliver this training. Thirty-six such mobile units currently operate across states including Jharkhand, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Telangana.
The model also ensures that students don’t stall after the primary level. Almost 90% of Ekal students go on to pursue education in nearby government schools, taking admission in Class 4 or 5. The dropout rate among Ekal students is relatively very low compared to other students. One graduate from Assam even went on to carry the torch for India’s Olympic team at the London 2012 Olympics – a testament to the possibilities unlocked by even three hours of daily schooling in a village.
Why the FTS model matters for education policy
The FTS story offers several lessons for education planners and policymakers. First, it demonstrates that access and quality do not have to be sacrificed for affordability. Ekal introduced a joyful learning system – a non-formal method of teaching – that addressed the core issue of lack of interest in education. Its schools are scheduled at convenient hours recommended by the village committee, allowing children time for household economic activities and domestic chores before or after classes.
Second, it highlights the critical importance of community ownership. Local people are involved in the organisation at every level – from the subcluster of 10 schools to the cluster of 30, the subarea of 90, and the area unit of 270 schools. This participatory structure ensures local accountability and significantly reduces teacher absenteeism – a persistent problem in many remote government schools.
Third, the FTS model illustrates how non-formal education can serve as a vital bridge. Despite many villages now having government primary schools under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the Right to Education Act, Ekal schools continue to be the only or the main source of basic education in many remote areas – because government-posted teachers often have poor attendance in such locations. Rather than competing with the state, FTS fills the gap where the state is absent.
What do you think? Can the Ekal Vidyalaya’s one-teacher model be meaningfully adapted for other underserved communities beyond tribal regions – such as urban slums or migrant settlements – without losing what makes it effective? And given the state’s ongoing challenges in staffing remote schools, should governments more actively partner with volunteer-driven NGOs like FTS to close India’s education gap?
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