Tribals and their literacy ratio in India

Sharmacharu

Published in

MUNner’s Daily

8 min readMar 24, 2021

Is the Education system a myth for tribal people?

Is the Indian education system like a bureaucratic system for tribal people?

Are we living in a democratic country?

Nobody knows what tribes we came from or what our tribal inheritance is or what the mysteries were in the woods where the people lived that we came from. All we know is that we do not know.
— Ernest Hemingway

Well, I would like to start with a known case. This case is related to a woman belonging to the Bhil tribe, a Scheduled Tribe in Maharashtra. She was brutally beaten, kicked, and stripped, and then was compelled to walk naked on the village road, owing to an illicit relationship with a man from an upper caste.

The four accused were convicted by the Additional Sessions Judge, Ahmednagar, under different Sections of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment ranging from a period of three months to one year, and were also required to pay fines.

India has the largest tribal population in the world. The number of tribals is approximately 8.6 percent of the country’s total population. They are also among the country’s most marginalized.

What is in India’s political system that stops the tribal voice/Rights/Participation?

In comparison to the literacy rate of 29.34% for the general population, the literacy rate among the tribal population in India is only about 6%.

Tribal voices were almost absent from the electoral discourse of 2019. Their presence in a clumped manner and in the interiors are not considered as part of our everyday electoral discussions.

Their participation in the politics of democracy is also not enough nor is it equally distributed. The development of political leadership among the tribal communities has not been horizontal, but vertical.

Problems of Tribal Education?

There are many critical issues and problems that create hindrances in the field of tribal education.

· The medium of language — Language is one of the important constraints for tribal children which prevents them access to education.

· The Location of the Village — The physical barriers create a hindrance for the children of a tribal village to attend the school in a neighboring village.

· Economic Condition — The economic situation of tribal people is very poor. They expect to spare their children for the purpose of labor and hence are compelled to not allow them to attend schools for educational purposes.

· The attitude of the parents — As education does not yield any immediate economic return, the tribal parents prefer to engage their children in remunerative employment which supplements the family income.

The important indicator of any country’s level of human development is education and literacy rate. Education is important for everybody. It does not depend upon gender, caste, class, color, and creed — it is important for both men and women.

Education is a tool that enables women to find the right path for their overall growth and development. In most states, tribal women are suffering due to blind beliefs, superstitions, orthodox thinking, and ignorance. However, the women and girls from scheduled tribes are guaranteed constitutional rights as well as rights under the specific laws constituted by the Parliament, especially under PESA( Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996).

Government planners see education as important parameters for helping tribal people in order to maintain and cope with national integration. Education will also help in analyzing the level of prosperity, success, and security in life. The tribes which remain either unprivileged or irresponsible towards education will suffer the consequences.

The Union and the state governments have spent some amount of money for the purpose of tribal youths’ education, but the results haven’t shown. The Commissioner for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes declared that unless exploitation among the tribes is tackled, the quality of education will not grow and no improvement in tribal welfare will occur. Within the tribal areas, education can be considered as the basis for integrated development.

Government reports indicate that there is no scarcity of schools, other facilities, or scholarships required for the implementation of tribal education schemes. Most of the tribal youth find these types of incentives less attractive. Eventually, the government’s dream is to assimilate the tribes that remain unfulfilled and it will raise basic questions about the implementation of policies and strategies.

Relation between Tribal Students and Teachers

One of the important factors of tribal education that influence integration into the national mainstream of life is the relationship between the students and their teachers. Usually, students and teachers from non-tribal background find it difficult to understand those coming from the tribal community. To the teachers, tribal students appear untidy, reinforcing their biases against tribals. These biases are expressed in various forms of discrimination. There have been instances of tribal youth complaining that teachers did not teach them in schools because they believed that if they teach them, the tribal students would no longer be dependent on them. Tribal youth also feel that teachers support undermining the attitudes toward their own customs, mannerisms, language, or, in the direction of their cultural heritage in a general manner.

Eklavya Model Residential Schools

The Ministry of Tribal Affairs has been implementing a separate Central Sector Scheme ‘Eklavya Model Residential Schools’ (EMRSs) from 2019–20. The main aim of EMRS is to provide quality upper primary, secondary and senior secondary level education to Scheduled Tribe (ST) students to enable them to access the best opportunities in the area of education and bring them at par with the general population. EMRSs are currently functional across the country. As per the Census report of 2011, the literacy rate of Scheduled Tribes (STs) was 59% whereas the overall literacy rate was 73% for all Indians. As per the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) report, 2017–18 that was published by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, the literacy rate for STs stood at 67.7% and the corresponding overall population figure is 76.9%. The PLFS 2018–19 reports revealed an improvement in literacy rate for STs. Their literacy rate increased to 69.4% as compared to 78.1% for the whole country.

Education is considered as the key to tribal development. Tribal children have very rare level of participation with regard to the same. Though the development of tribes is taking place in India, the rate of development has been slow. If the government does not take appropriate steps for the purpose of development of tribal education, it can be the cause of distress, despair, and even death among the tribals. Thus, it is time to think seriously about tribal education and their inclusive growth. So, there is an urgent need for intervention from government bodies, planners, and policymakers in order to address this problem and provide more funds in the central and state budgets for the purpose of tribal education. Easy access and more opportunities should be provided to the tribal children in order to bring them to the mainstream for the purpose of economic development.

Government Policies and Program for Tribal Education

The Tribal Sub‐Plan Strategy (TSP) was implemented with the help of the Ministry of Education and Social Welfare. TSP was based on twin objectives that are related to socio‐economic development and protection against exploitation. It was generally implemented in the areas where the Scheduled Tribe population was more than 50 percent of the total population.

Ø The PESA (The Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 in fact, has made it mandatory for the States having scheduled castes to make specific provisions for giving wide-ranging along with the powers that are provided to the tribes on the matters related to decision-making and development of their community and livelihood.

Ø Education as a vehicle for social mobility - The Janshala Programme is a collaborative effort of the Government of India (GOI) and five UN Agencies — UNDP, UNICEF, UNESCO, ILO, and UNFPA –a community based primary education program, which aims to make primary education more accessible and effective, especially for girls and children in deprived communities, marginalized groups, Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribes/minorities, and children with a specific need.

Some criteria for improvement of tribal education are as follows:

Ø Proper awareness campaign — It should be organized to create awareness about the importance of education. The broad literacy campaigns in the tribal-dominated districts may be undertaken on a priority basis to literate the tribals.

Ø Attitude of the tribal parents — The attitude of the tribal parents toward education should be improved through proper counseling and guidance.

Ø Relevant study materials in local languages — All study materials should be supplied in the local languages of tribes.

Ø Appointment of Local teachers and female teachers — It is suggested to appoint more tribal teachers and female teachers in the tribal areas. The ecological, cultural, psychological features of tribal children should be considered carefully by the teachers in tribal areas.

Ø Stipends and various scholarships — Since higher education among the tribes is less, special ST scholarships should be provided to the tribal students perusing higher education, particularly in medical, engineering, and other vocational streams.

“We should judge results, not by statistics or the amount of money spent, but by the quality of human character that is evolved”.
— Jawaharlal Nehru

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