Quality of Education Among Tribal Girl Childr...

Quality of Education Among Tribal Girl Children in 21st Century: A Study of ST Schools of Odisha State

Author Name : Kondalu Sarathi, Damodar Mahapatra, Priyanka Nayak, Tanuja Kumar Sahu

ABSTRACT : India is a land of various ethnic, multicultural, multi religious and various indigenous people. The State of Odisha occupies an important place in the country having a high concentration of Scheduled Tribe population. As per the 2011 census, it is ranked third in terms of ST population. However, Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes together constitute nearly 40% of the State’s Total Population (STs 22.85% and SCs 17.13%). Education as a means of advancement of capacity, well-being and opportunity is unique, and more so among communities on the periphery. Marked improvements in access and to some extent in quality of primary education in tribal areas have occurred, and stem from government and non-government initiatives. However, the number of outof-school children continues to be several millions, mainly due to lack of interest and parental motivation, inability to understand the medium of instruction (i.e. state language), teacher absenteeism and attitude, opportunity cost of time spent in school (particularly for girls), large seasonal migration etc. Low literacy rates in tribal communities continue to indicate a need for overarching support that tackles issues from health to attitudes of non-tribal populations (Bagai & Nundy, 2009). The present paper is based on the status of quality education of tribal girl children in Odisha.