Diversity, Inequality and Inclusion: Status of Tribal in Public Education System, Odisha

Education

Our society and classrooms are becoming increasingly diverse which through enormous challenges before development agencies to address diversity without biases, prejudice and discrimination. Though diversity offers enriching experiences of learning and mutual benefits to different groups however India has not been very successful in harnessing the potential of diversity. Education being the most important instrument of modernization and nation-building has not been very successful in recognising and incorporating diversity in teaching-learning processes. Development indicators suggest that traditionally excluded groups such as the tribals continued to experience discrimination and exclusion. Tribals are lagging behind the rest in educational attainment due to hierarchical and discriminatory educational system. Schools attended by tribal children are located at the bottom of the school hierarchy and receive limited resources and attention. These children receive poor quality education under substandard infrastructure which diminishes their academic performance. With the help of secondary data, the paper examines the status of tribal education vis-a-vis diversity policy of the educational status and experience of the tribal students in Odisha. It examines whether the state is implementing a policy of integration or implicitly pursuing a policy of assimilation through tribal education.

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