for such a rich school?
One woman said,
I went to Loreto Convent on Ripon Street. My
sister went to Entally Loreto Convent. Both
these schools did try to teach us, but, we
just kept failing the exams. This is a bad
dream, I know I can't be living here...yet I
am here. I wonder what my mother would have
said if she had found me in this hut.
A man said,
I became difficult in school. I started to
bunk school. I didn't finish school. I
failed and had to repeat so many times. I
failed to pass Bengali, and the teachers
couldn't be bothered with me.
The group did not want to be photographed.
CONCLUSION
The analysis of these two interviews presents a picture
of economic inequality which could be directly linked to
inadequate educational qualifications. All the adult
Anglo-Indians had attended Anglo-Indian schools. None of
them had completed their Secondary School Leaving
Certificate Examinations.
The Anglo-Indian educational system did not exist for the
education of these Anglo-Indians. They had no marketable
skills and the economic inequality distorted their
personal development. In two generations there were
cases of mental retardation.
The Lobo Report of Anglo-Indian poverty in two slums
resembles the reports written by civil servants in the
late nineteenth century. The Lingarajapuram and
Thilljallah Anglo-Indians had similar values, beliefs,
modes of personal behaviour and patterns of social and
economic problems. The lesson to be learned from these
slum dwellers is that the schools had failed to improve
the opportunities of certain groups of Anglo-Indian
children.
The cumulative message of these two studies was clear.
At each stage of their education, Anglo-Indians did less
well than middle-class Indian children in the same
school.
This thesis documented the problem, defined its causes
and has prescribed innovative policy in the adoption of a
theory-practice model to eliminate disadvantage. Now the
critical question is whether the researcher's ideas would
find sufficient support to be translated into a national
public policy of change for Anglo-Indian schools.
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