Debi, Sailabala. (2008). EDUCATIONAL PARTICIPATION OF SCHEDULED TRIBES IN ORISSA: ANALYSIS OF THE DEMAND AND SUPPLY SIDE CONSTRAINTS. Unpublished. ERIC, Education

Objectives of the study:

• To take the stock of the educational participation of Scheduled Tribes as compared to the non scheduled tribes.

• To examine the regional disparities in educational participation of ST and non STs.

• To identify the demand side and supply side constraints of the educational participation of ST and non STs.

• To evaluate the effect of demand side and supply side factors on the educational participation of STs and Non STs.

• To suggest the strategies for the improvement of educational participation of scheduled tribe children.

Sample:

The study covered three districts, 9 blocks and 27 villages of Orissa. A total of 1200 parents, 1800 children, 30 schools, 77 teachers, 30 community leaders, 9 BEOs were covered for collecting the relevant information.

Tools Used:

• Household Listing Schedule

• Village Information Schedule

• Community Schedule

• School Schedule

• Parent Schedule

• Child Schedule

• BEO/BRP Schedule

• Teacher Schedule

Method:

Survey Method

Statistical Techniques:

The Gender disparity index in literacy; Gender Parity Index in Enrollment (GPI); Coefficient of Variation in Literacy rate; Maximum Likelihood Probit Model.

Findings:

• The literacy rate of male, female and total population of scheduled tribes in the scheduled districts are lower than the non scheduled districts with an exception to the district of Sundergarh. The lowest female literacy rate is found to be less than 8 percent in Malkangri district.

• About 27% of the habitations with predominantly scheduled tribe population do not have a primary school within a radius of one kilometers.

• The enrollment in primary schools indicates that girls are generally behind the boys. The dropouts rate of ST children is the highest.

• The percentage of female teachers in the state is much below the required norm and the percentage of tribal teachers is 8.1% in the state.

• The socio-economic status of the household showed that the highest proportion of ST is found in Sundergarh and the highest proportion of SCs are found in Puri district.

• It was found that the household living poverty line of both the districts, Bolangir and Sundergarh are almost the same while it was lower in the district of Puri.

• The study reveals that the economic status of the district Puri is better than the other two districts.

• The occupational status of the HHs indicated that highest number of households in Bolangir are engaged as daily labor and for Puri they engaged in service.

• The percapita income of the district Puri is found to be highest followed by Sundergarh and Bolangir.

• The results reveals that the literacy rate is among females is much higher than males in all districts.

• The profile of the children showed that (a) there are some over aged (11-14) children still continuing at the primary level. This proportion is found to be the highest in Bolangir district and lowest in Puri district. More interestingly it is observed that the over aged children among girls are found to be less than their boy counterparts. This implies that girls are performing better than the boys in their respective educational levels. (b)The tribal enrollment is found to be lower than that of non tribal in all the districts. Similarly the dropout and never enrollment rates are the lowest in Puri and highest in Bolangir district. (c)It was observed that there was a large gap between the enrollment and actual attendance of children. Most interestingly, the attendance of girls was fournd to be higher than that of boys. (d)The mean grade attainment of all currently enrolled children is higher for males than for females in all the districts and in all social groups. It is invariably the highest among children of the high castes than SCs or STs.

• The dropout is more among the tribal children than their non tribal counterparts. One of the most important reasons stated invariably by the parents was poverty which compels the parents not to send their ward to the schools. However there are few other reasons, which may also be responsible for drop-out problem of tribal students which are as follows:(a) The medium of teaching i.e., Oriya language is a foreign language for the tribal children; (b) Absence of tribal cultural and regional materials in class books, (c) Teachers in interior pockets neglecting in duties, (d) Irregular supply of mid-day meals, (e) Lack of communication facility, (f) Untimely supply of study materials There are many other minor reasons for drop out of tribal students. If this type of process will continue and slow progress of literacy rate will prevail then the very purpose of fundamental right to education as per 86th amendment of Constitution will be defeated (g)The children engaged wage earning activities varies from 3 hours to 7 hours. The working hours among the ST children are found to be higher than non ST children Girls are engaged for more hours in domestic work than their boy counterparts. This is mainly on account of poor economic condition of the family

• The results of multivariate analysis indicate that of the demand side factors, the economic status of family and parent's education in all the districts are positively associated with the enrolment of children among all the categories of castes. The distance to forests affects the attendance of children significantly. The caste and village dummy show that the villages with high ST have negative impact on the enrollment of children. Of the supply side factors school infrastructure and pupil teacher ratio are positively related to the enrollment of children while the distance to school is negatively associated with the enrollment. The results of regression are similar for all the districts.

Keyword(s): Scheduled Tribes, Orissa