Ignored Claims: A Focus on Status of Tribal Women Education of Santal Community of Puruliya District, West Bengal, India

In a tribal world, role of women is more respectful than so called civil society. She enjoys and shares economic burden of her family as well as take part in almost every decision making. Thus she is more empowered than her counterpart. But in terms of materialistic development point of view a tribal women still suffers disproportionately from education and decent standard of living. In this juncture the paper tends to explain the status of tribal women education of one of the major tribal communities of Puruliya district, West Bengal namely the Santal. To understand the educational condition of Santal women, a statistical measurement technique is developed known as Female Educational Attainment Index (FEAI) which is comprised of two indices i.e. Combined Enrolment Index (CEI) and Female Literacy Index (FLI).

Puruliya district is facing severe economic underdevelopment. Tremendous pressure of daily means of subsistence particularly of the economically backward tribal people doesn't allow being educated and this is even worse in case of tribal women society. The gap between tribal male and female literacy level in the district is about 38 per cent. In this juncture the paper by using FEAI, tries to highlight the status of tribal women education of Santal community of a backward district of India and prescribe few ameliorative measures to confront the situation.