Challenging Issues of Tribal Students

Literacy and educational attainment are powerful indicators of social and economic development among the backward groups in India. Currently, the tribes lag behind not only the general population but also the scheduled caste population in literacy and education. This disparity is even more marked among scheduled tribe women, who have the lowest literacy rates in the country (Maharashtra, 2005). The Male-female gap in literacy and educational attainment among the scheduled tribes is significant. Education, especially in its elementary form, is considered of utmost importance to the tribal because it¿s crucial for total development of tribal communities and is particularly helpful to build confidence among the tribes to deal with outsiders on equal terms. Despite the sincere and concerted by the government for the overall development of the scheduled tribes, they are still far behind in almost all the standard parameters of development. They are not able to participate in the process of development, as they are not aware of most of the programmers and policies made for their upliftment. This is mainly due to the high incidence of illiteracy among the tribal.