Educational status among the scheduled tribes: Issues and challenges

Scheduled Tribes have always been a geographically, socially isolated group and are economically marginal. Over centuries they maintained their own law and order system. With the advent of British, the tribal regions were thrown open for development. In the name of development they were pushed into margins. In the post-Independence period, sincere and concerted efforts were made for the development of tribals both economically as well as educationally. Despite these efforts the performance of the tribes in education is much lower than the Scheduled Castes. As the studies on tribal education suggests that most of the time the policy makers approach was only to develop national curriculum rather giving importance to their culturally linked education. This in turn encouraged them to be dropouts at primary level. This off course directly impacted their overall educational status.