Context:

Tribal communities in India have been historically deprived of access to resources and opportunities, including the ‘opportunity to get educated’.

The literacy trend of Indian tribes

• Overall literacy: The percentage of literacy of tribes was only 8.54 percent in 1961 which has increased to 63.1 percent in 2011.
• Male vs Female: But female literacy of tribes is only 54.4 percent compared to male literacy of 71.7 percent.
• Drop-out: Nearly 50% of the children from this social group drop out while transitioning from primary to secondary grades (based on the educational status recorded in the same census).
  • Nearly 80% of them stop education when they are in grade X in other words, only 20% appear for the high-school examination.

Medium of instruction

Article 350A of the Constitution of India states that every state must have adequate facilities to teach children in their mother tongue.

Concerned Ministries and Organization

• Ministry of Tribal Affairs
  • The Ministry was set up in 1999 after the bifurcation of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment with the objective of providing a more focused approach on the integrated socio-economic development of the Scheduled Tribes (STs).
  • The Ministry of Tribal Affairs is the nodal Ministry for overall policy, planning, and coordination of programs for the development of ST’s.
  • It covers all tribal people and all areas with tribal populations across the country.
    • Social security and social insurance to the Scheduled Tribes
    • Tribal Welfare: Planning, project formulation, research, evaluation, statistics and training
    • Promotion and development of voluntary efforts on tribal welfare;
    • Development of Scheduled Tribes
    • Scheduled Areas y Monitoring of Tribal Sub-Plan, based on the framework and mechanism designed by NITI Ayog
    • National Commission for Scheduled Tribes.