Impact of marital status on education among tribal community: Asur community in particular

Education is the ultimate panacea to all socio-economic problems and tribal community is not an exception to it. India with about 2800 caste communities, a large number of whom are tribal and backward. Early marriage among them seems to create a hindrance in the way of education. This study tries to reveal the relationship between the marital status and the attitude towards education among the Asur community, a particularly vulnerable aboriginal tribal community in West Bengal, India. A total of 120 numbers of samples from Cooch Bihar and Alipurduar districts, West Bengal were taken for this study. 1:1, face-to-face interview was conducted with a self-made inventory for data collection purpose. Descriptive as well as inferential statistics were used for data analysis. A significant difference between the attitude of the married and unmarried members of Asur community was revealed at 0.01 level. Contrary to general perception, the married members possess better positive attitude towards education than their unmarried counterparts. Family responsibility forces them to better comprehend the importance of education in today's world. This result might prove helpful in devising appropriate provisions for education to this particularly vulnerable most primitive tribe of India in particular and the Tribal Education in general.