Abstract

Education is one of the important preconditions of human development. In India, the Constitution ensures free and compulsory education for all the children belonging to different sections of the society, including scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward communities. Article 45 of the Indian constitution is more specific regarding the obligation of the state. It directs the state to strive to provide, within a period of 10 years from the commencement of the Constitution, free and compulsory education up to the age of 14 years. The educational facility in Tripura is not evenly distributed in tribal and non-tribal areas. The state’s literacy rate reflects steady increases during last three decades, while the data information indicates that the majority of the tribal children are deprived of basic education facilities. This chapter studies the striking inequality in terms of area as well as of community. Moreover, students in the tribal area are facing inadequate accessibility of schools and poor quality of education and are forced to travel long distances to attend schools. The inadequate number of secondary and higher educational institutions in the tribal area has also resulted in lower performance of tribal education. The aim of this chapter is to examine the inequalities in school enrolment rate and infrastructure availability and to highlight some suggestions for improvement in the quality education among this depressed section of society in Tripura. The analysis in this study is based on secondary data provided by various research papers and a departmental annual report by the Government of India. The period of study is 2000–01 to 2015–16. However, the study shows that tribal children are not less competent than the children of other groups. Rather, they can acquire all those skills that the members of other groups of the society possess. But that requires developing a positive frame of mind about tribal children through organising the effective programme of tribal education as well as promoting economic and other aspects of tribal development.