Educational status of Scheduled Caste : attainments and challenges / Dr. D. Parimala

Various education policies and government initiatives has been focused to improve the literacy rate of the tribal communities. After sixty- four years of independence the tribal people are still lagging behind from the development basically in the education field. Still high drop outs and illiteracy rate is high among the tribal in comparison to other communities. In recent study it has been found that there is 70.9% of the drop out among the tribal. In such milieu, it is high time to find out why tribal communities are still lagging behind from the mainstream of society especially in education sector. There are various aspects of education. This study deals with the aspect of access to education. Participation is an extremely crucial element of learning. It is a proven fact that students learn better and retain more when they are active participants. Learning is an active process and should involve deliberation. The participation and access of the students in the education system includes the interaction between the students and all the stakeholders and vice-versa. Tribal people do not have to assimilate into anything because they have the sovereign dignity and freedom to adapt to any circumstances that will allow them to fulfil their dreams, aspirations and life pursuits. The study includes not only the availability of infrastructure but also participation of the students’ in the class, teachers’ approach, and etc., which plays vital role towards increasing the status of the tribal in the education sector in qualitative and quantitative manner. The study includes both purposive and random sampling methods.