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India’s Tribal Schools Fail Their Most Vulnerable Students

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Devi Singh Paharia, in his mid-50s, belongs to one of the three Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) in the Santhal Parganas, Dumka district, Jharkhand. He is a senior functionary of the Adivasi Adhikar Manch, a forum that takes up matters of tribal rights and welfare. He tells Frontline about a disturbing trend in school education in the area. Children from his community “are almost never sent to school,” he says, adding that this perhaps owes to the fact their families are illiterate themselves. “The children finish Class X with much difficulty. In my own family, there is little education. And our economic situation was very poor,” he says. So, it is “rare,” he says, “to find engineers or doctors among us.” In his village in the Dumka district, “a few students passed out of the Eklavya school”; but they joined the “battalion,” he says, referring to the Army.

The Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS)—a programme launched in 1997-98 by the Central government to provide quality education to Scheduled Tribe (ST) students in remote parts of the country from Class VI to XII—have been performing woefully, with high dropout rates among children from PVTGs. Infrastructural gaps, teacher shortages, and the pressure to work for a living were some of the reasons cited by the Union Minister of State, Durga Das Uikey, in Parliament last month.

Paharia’s colleague, Subhash Hembram, a Santhal, echoes his concerns. He says 90 per cent of Paharias have opted for daily wage work. They are landless and poor. They migrated to far-off cities, including metros. “It is not enough to build schools. The Paharia children are barely able to pass the entrance exams in Eklavya schools. And those seats naturally fall vacant.”

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According to the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, 1,35,357 students are enrolled in the Eklavya schools: 67,001 are boys and 68,356 girls. Admission to these schools was through a competitive process with some preference given to PVTGs and first-generation students. Of the available seats, 10 per cent are reserved for non-ST students.

Of the 476 functional schools, 274 are listed under Article 275 (the Constitutional proviso for additional grants to meet the cost of schemes approved by the Ministry); the remaining 202 are under a new central scheme. According to a government press release issued in July last year, under the new scheme, the centre has decided to establish one EMRS in every block with an ST population of more than 50 per cent and at least 20,000 tribal persons (as per census 2011).

The establishment, control, and management of Eklavya schools is done by the National Educational Society for Tribal Students or NESTS, set up in 2019 as an autonomous body under the Tribal Affairs Ministry. In 2020, NESTS issued its first set of guidelines including a proviso of 5 per cent for PVTGs. There are 75 identified PVTGs in 18 States and the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. These comprise 12 such groups in Andhra Pradesh including Telangana, nine in Bihar including Jharkhand; five each in Gujarat and Kerala; two in Karnataka; eight in Madhya Pradesh including Chhattisgarh; two in Maharashtra, 13 in Odisha; one each in Rajasthan, Tripura, and Manipur; six in Tamil Nadu; two in Uttar Pradesh including Uttarakhand; three in West Bengal; and five in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Apart from ensuring quality education, this autonomous body is mandated to provide facilities for instruction through a common medium across the country; offer a common core curriculum, and help students acquire skill-oriented employment, especially self-employment.

Girls get saline drips at a sick room at an EMRS in Chandrasekharapuram village, Nellore district, Andhra Pradesh on November 19 2024. Dropout rates among students from Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups have increased across States.  

Girls get saline drips at a sick room at an EMRS in Chandrasekharapuram village, Nellore district, Andhra Pradesh on November 19 2024. Dropout rates among students from Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups have increased across States.   | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement

Under the EMRS programme, State governments were required to provide land for schools, playgrounds, hostels, and other residential quarters, free of cost. Now, however, all Eklavya schools, since they fall under the Central government, must comply with Central Board of School Education (CBSE) norms. These schools are supposed to be modelled on the lines of Navodaya Schools with a special focus on preserving local art and culture. Navodaya Schools are special CBSE schools where quality education to talented children from Classes VI to XII is offered.

Non-functional schools But the data with the Tribal Ministry tells a discomfiting story: not all EMRS are functional. While 716 such schools have been approved, an abysmal 476 are functional; the remaining 240 are listed as non-functional. Each EMR school accommodates 480 students (see Table 1).

Girls outnumber boys in these residential schools, even if by a little over a thousand. But there is, however, little gender-disaggregated data about dropout rates, and a high dropout rate clearly does seem to be an issue. Enrolment levels in these schools see a steep decline from Class VII onwards. The latest data reveals that while over 22,385 students were enrolled in Class VI, just about half that number, 12,480 students, were enrolled in Class XII. As for performance, of the 15,813 who appeared in Class X exams, 1,828 students failed to clear them. Of the 11,501 students who appeared for Class XII exams, 2,978 did not manage pass.

The EMRS enrolment data reflects a larger pattern in the all-India social group-wise gross enrolment ratio (GER) figures across different levels of schooling (see Table 2). While both SC and ST communities have a higher GER than the average for all social groups up to the upper primary stage, the GER of STs tends to drop the most sharply in the secondary and higher secondary stages and falls way below the average among all social groups. This is in contrast to the picture of SC communities, which retain their edge even up to the higher secondary stage. Therefore, tribal communities face special disadvantages in continuing education beyond the upper primary level and the EMRS have not been able to address this problem.

Data accessed under the Right to Information Act by The Hindu also revealed that the quota for children from PVTGs was nowhere near the 5 per cent allocated for them in the Eklavya schools. The data also revealed that in Madhya Pradesh, they accounted for 3.8 per cent; Chhattisgarh, 2.74 per cent and in Gujarat, less than one per cent.

According to the 2011 Census STs account for around 8.6 per cent of the total population. Welfare measures for tribals, according to government reports, have been in place for decades, with the Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) dating back to 1974-75. The TSP comprised a Scheduled Tribe Component and a Development Action Plan for Scheduled Tribes. Budget allocations for the Ministry of Tribal Affairs were supposedly stepped up in 2024-25, with the government claiming an increase of 73.6 per cent over the previous budget.

Notwithstanding budget allocations over the years, the scenario of overall enrolment, infrastructure, and pupil-teacher ratio in school education appears rather grim. Curtailing dropout rates and ensuring universal access to education by 2030 are among the stated goals of the NEP and Sustainable Development Goals. The vision of the much-critiqued policy is to achieve a 100 per cent gross enrolment rate till the secondary levels of education.

Currently, the data shows, the all-India GER at the secondary level stands at 66 per cent; 22 States have a GER of over 66 per cent and 14 States below that. The lowest GERs are observed in Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Assam, and Gujarat. Clearly, the targets set for 2030 are less likely to be met at this rate, and as for ST communities (especially PVTGs), the distance to be travelled is much longer.

According to the latest Unified District Information System data (UDISE 2023-24) for education, even though a large number of primary schools were established after the Right to Education Act, there has been no commensurate increase in schools at secondary and higher secondary levels. This, the report says, poses the risk of “large scale dropout of students at the higher classes”. Enrolment and retention of students, in the words of the UDISE document, is an indicative measure of how many students who entered Class I were being retained in subsequent years, a function of effective policy. Retention rates were highest at foundational levels (98 per cent), followed by preparatory (85.4), middle (78) and least at secondary level (45.6). The low level of retention at the secondary level, across the population, makes it clear that for vulnerable groups such as PVTGs, the ratio would be much higher.

Dropout rates across States States with the highest dropout rates at the secondary level include Bihar, Karnataka, Gujarat, Meghalaya, Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, and Arunachal Pradesh followed by Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Sikkim and Manipur. The States with the lowest dropout rates are Lakshadweep at 1.6 per cent and Kerala at 2.2 per cent. The dropout rate as a whole was lowest at the primary level (1.9), followed by upper primary (5.2) and 14.1 at the secondary level.

Even though there isn’t any specific disaggregated data on the dropout rate among PVTGs in the UDISE, it can be safely assumed that it would be significantly higher. The literacy rate among STs does not exceed 30 per cent as a whole. Among PVTGs, it ranges from the lowest 0 per cent (Jarawas and Sentinelese), to 3.1 among the Shom Pens of the Andaman and Nicobar islands to 29.9 (the highest) among the Porjas of Andhra Pradesh.

According to the UDISE 2023-24 data, of the total 14.7 lakh schools in the country, 1.5 lakh schools did not have either access to regular, functional or electricity at all. The situation was slightly better with regard to drinking water: 24,580 schools did not have drinking water facilities. As for toilets for girls around 3.7 per cent were non-functional. Only 52.3 per cent of schools had handrails and ramps for children with disability; 57.2 per cent had computers and 53.9 had Internet.

An Eklavya school in Nalgonda district, Telangana. March 19, 2016. As data shows, Eklavya schools still have much to achieve in terms of guaranteeing universal, accessible, and affordable education.

An Eklavya school in Nalgonda district, Telangana. March 19, 2016. As data shows, Eklavya schools still have much to achieve in terms of guaranteeing universal, accessible, and affordable education. | Photo Credit: SINGAM VENKATARAMANA

Clearly, therefore, school infrastructure in the country remains far from being optimal.

Frontline spoke to a cross-section of people from a few States who had experience in working among tribal communities and PVTGS. Falgun, a student leader in Dungarpur, Rajasthan, a tribal youth, said that in areas inhabited by tribal communities (even those who did not come under the PVTG classification), it was difficult for young people from socially backward sections to get admissions to school. In Dungarpur, he said that children from the Kalbeliya community, who are classified as SC and Garasias (ST) find it difficult to get enrolled into schools. “There is practically no one from the Kalbeliya community. In most of the Eklavya schools in the area, children from the Bhil community are generally able to get enrolled. But even for them, this is a challenge as admission to Class VI onwards is by an entrance exam,” he said.

Hemant Kharadi, a teacher in Dungarpur, explained another dimension to the problem of education for tribal children. Most teachers were on deputation or on contract. “A lot of positions remain vacant as a result. Those on deputation come from other States. The NEP says that education should be in the local language, but there is little local recruitment. Communication with students becomes a challenge,” he said.

Shahbad and Kishanganj are two blocks in Baran district where Sahariyas, the only tribal community classified as PVTG in Rajasthan, are found. There were reserved posts for Sahariyas in government jobs, but members from the community rarely qualify. The head of an NGO that works with the community, said, on the condition of anonymity, that the community’s economic status prevents younger children from making it to school. As for higher education, it was out of the question.

Unfamiliarity with local languageMigration for work among the Sahariyas is common. Duli Chand Meena, an activist with the CPI (M), has worked in Baran. Sahariyas did not have assets such as land, and they migrated for both seasonal and permanent work. Killo Surendra, general secretary of the Adivasi Girijan Sangham in Andhra Pradesh, works among tribal communities and PVTGs. Apart from infrastructure gaps such as teacher shortage, children from these groups had difficulty in following the medium of instruction, which was mostly bilingual at regional State level schools. The practice of recruiting teachers from other States, who were unfamiliar with the local mother tongue was an issue. As the parents of these children were mostly illiterate, the lack of family support posed a challenge too.

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“Even though education is free in these schools, the curriculum becomes difficult to follow. Then there is the pressure on children to work for a living,” he said.

Elaborating on the situation of the Paharia community in the Santhal Parganas, Subhash Hembram says 90 per cent of Paharias did daily wage work. They werelandless and poor. They migrated to far-off cities, including metros. “It is not enough to build schools. The Paharia children are barely able to pass the entrance exams in Eklavya schools. Those seats naturally fall vacant. Private schools are out of the reach of the Paharia community. The government needs to actively encourage families to send their children to school. They must also support families economically so that the pressure of earning an income gets reduced. What is generally observed is that as soon as a girl attains puberty, she is married off. If she fails Class X, her parents get her married,” he says, adding that in the SP College in Dumka for undergraduates, for instance, one can’t find a single girl from the Paharia community.

Quality education may be the objective of Eklavya schools, as is the subsequent access to higher education, leading to employment opportunities. But as it turns out, there is a lot to be achieved in terms of guaranteeing universal, accessible, and affordable school education in general, as the latest UDISE school education data shows, particularly for vulnerable groups.

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