ABSTRACT
In over six decades since the attainment of independence, India has made steady progress in economic and social development. This has led to considerable improvement in standard and quality of life of the people. The spread of such improvement has however been far from even. One of the segments of the population that seems to have lagged the most is what in India is described as tribes or tribal communities. As per 2011 census, tribes are enumerated over 104 million constituting 8.6 per cent of the total population. Of the total population approximately 90 per cent live in rural areas and about 10 per cent in urban areas. They represent as many as over 700 distinct ethnic groups. The people living below poverty line are the highest among the tribal communities. In 2004–5, the incidence of rural poverty among tribes was over 46 per cent as compared to 28 per cent for all social groups (Mathur 2008). And so has been the case with health indicators such as infant mortality rate, under-five mortality rate, percentage of people being anaemic and so on. As per National Family Health Survey 2005–6, the infant mortality rate was 62.1 and under-five mortality rate was 95.7 per 1,000 population among tribes in comparison to 57 and 74.3 respectively for all social groups. The sphere of education is no different, whether it is primary, upper primary, high school, higher secondary school or higher education. From 1961 to 2001, literacy rate for the scheduled tribes (STs) increased from 8.53 per cent to 47.10 per cent (Government of India 2007). Yet the gap between the literacy rates of STs compared to all population groups was about 18 per cent. Enrolment is still a problem. As one glances at the educational status of tribes from one stage to another, one is faced with the same problem, that is, the low enrolment ratio and more importantly high dropout rates. However, since past decade or so, enrolment of tribal children has shown an increase faster than the enrolment of other categories in primary, upper primary and even in other categories. Enrolment is taken to bolster claim for progress made in expanding school education in India. But enrolment is a very unreliable basis for assessing the degree of access to education. What is important to assessing the progress of expanding education is figures for attendance and dropout rather than enrolment. Now the enrolment of tribal children in school is not that low but dropout rates are exorbitantly high. It is the dropouts that constitute the most serious problem as far as tribal children’s education is concerned. Dropout rates at primary, upper primary and secondary was as high as 52.3, 69.5 and 81.2, respectively, as compared to 39.0, 54.6 and 66.0 for the general population in 2001–2. In 2002–3 dropout rates had declined by mere 1 per cent at all three levels (Government of India 2007). Further, the issue is just not the question of number. The problem is even greater if quality is taken as the consideration. The poor enrolment at successive higher stages of education is much to do with the quality of education. The quality of education has bearing not only on educational performance but also on high dropout rates.
