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Inclusive education

Education and social equity: with a special focus on scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in elementary education

Ensuring access to quality education for marginalised groups in India

Authors: M. Sedwal; S. Kamat; National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), India
Publisher: Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity , 2008

Full text of document

The Scheduled Castes (SCs, also known as Dalits) and Scheduled Tribes (STs, also known as Adivasis) are among the most socially and educationally disadvantaged groups in India. This paper examines issues concerning school access and equity for SC and ST communities and also highlights their unique problems, which may require divergent policy responses.

The paper aims to:

  • introduce the reader to the nature of exclusion and discrimination faced by SCs and STs, and outlines the debate on the role of education in improving the socio-economic profile of both groups
  • explain the socio-economic conditions within which SCs and STs live and theirmarginalised status in contemporary India
  • provide a discussion of literacy advancement among these groups, and of national policies and programmeswhich aim to improve school access and equity.
  • highlight special efforts made by certain state governments to improve educational participation of these two communities as well as the educational experiments on a more modest scale undertaken by community based NGOs
  • focus on casteism as a deeply ideological issue that undercuts even the most genuine reform measures, and suggests research and policy options that may help to address underlying structural and ideological issues.
The document finds that significant progress has been made in simply getting SC and ST children to register and attend school on a regular basis. However, it is also clear that policy reforms and programmes thus far have not tackled the deeper systemic issues – including both home and school factors – that underlie the continuing poor performance of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students. These might include home environment, illiterate parents (especially mothers’ illiteracy), poverty and low nutritional levels, which result in weak development of the brain and mental faculties.

The authors argue that a social justice approach to access and equity would entail policy interventions that attend to the supply side of the education market. In other words, policy reforms that concentrate on improving institutional accountability and transforming teacher attitudes, curricular content and pedagogical approaches. These changes, targeted specifically at government schools, are urgently needed to foster genuine equity and provide full citizenship rights to SC and ST communities.