Status Of Scheduled Tribes in Higher Education Of Andhra Pradesh: A Case Study on Government Degree College in Arakuvally, Visakhapatnam District

: Andhra Pradesh is one of the homes to a large variety of indigenous people. The Scheduled Tribe population represents one of the most economically impoverished and marginalized groups in Andhra Pradesh. Education is crucial to development as it provides the individual with adequate skill for participating in various economic activities. Education brings out improvement in health, hygiene, demographic profile, productivity and is practically connected with the quality of life. Literacy level is a basic component of educational development in any society. However, Andhra Pradesh in general is lagging behind many other Indian states in this respect. There has been a progress in the literacy rate of Andhra Pradesh wherein it increased from 21.2% in 1961 to 66.67% in 2011. The remarkable progress literacy observed in the state during 1990s was the second highest among Indian states. But such a remarkable progress has not recurred in the recent decade. Hence, with respect to literacy rate Andhra Pradesh still stands with the league of economically backward states in India. There was a similar progress in literacy rate especially ST community in the state. The literacy rate was merely 8.53% in 1961 and it increased to 50% in 2011. In this paper discuss on “Status of scheduled tribes in higher education of andhra pradesh: a case study on government degree college in arakuvally, visakhapatnam district”.

in non-agricultural activities. Being illiterates, the tribal people cannot become acquainted with day today development in science and technology. Due to illiteracy, people of these communities are totally ignorant of basic principles of health which makes them an easy prey to diseases. For a tribal family to send a boy or a girl is essentially a matter of economics and entails dislocation in the traditional pattern of their labour force. Many tribals refrain from sending their children to school due to loss of good characteristics of the labour force and the fear of expenditure on education. Andhra Pradesh is one of the homes to a large variety of indigenous people. The Scheduled Tribe population represents one of the most economically impoverished and marginalized groups in Andhra Pradesh. Education is crucial to development as it provides the individual with adequate skill for participating in various economic activities. Education brings out improvement in health, hygiene, demographic profile, productivity and is practically connected with the quality of life. Amartya Sen (1992) is of the opinion that literacy should be seen as one of the basic capabilities which constitutes human wellbeing that it is not merely an indicator of social and economic condition but also the means whereby degrees of freedom can be exerted over one's own life. Man Mohan Singh (2006) emphasized the need to expand education system and improve skill building ability in order to translate the 'demographic dividend' into 'developmental dividend'. According to him, education is an urgent priority which needs to be attended to immediately. Realizing the importance of education, the Government of India formulated various measures to promote education.
Article 45 of the Directive Principles of State Policy emphasized the role of State to provide free and compulsory education to all children up to the age of 14 years. The National policy on education in 1968 and 1986 also gave a stimulus for the expansion of education. To improve literacy rate, the Government of India has increased educational expenditure in various Five Year Plans of India. The outlay on education increased from 2150 crores in First Five Year Plan to 2.70 lakh crores in Eleventh Five Year Plan. The expenditure on education as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product also rose from 0.7 percent in the First Five year plan to 6 percent in Eleventh Five year plan (Source: Eleventh Five year plan document -2002-07). Although educational expenditure as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product showed an increase during the plan period, the share is quite low compared with that of the less developed countries. The corresponding figures are much above 6 percent for developed countries (more than 8 percent for Canada, Netherland, etc.), among the less developed countries it is 5.5 percent for Kenya and 7.7 percent for Madagaskar (Santa Sinha, 1991).

II.
Review of Literature: Sujatha (2001) analysed the problems of tribal education. The study revealed that tribal communities continue to lag behind the general population in education due to external, internal, socio-economic and psychological constraints. The external constraints were related to problems and difficulties at level of policy, planning, implementation and administration. Internal constraints were related to problems associated with the school system, content, curriculum, medium of instruction, pedagogy, academic supervision, monitoring and teacher related problems. The major constraints of tribal education at planning level are the adoption of a dual system of administration. The tribal welfare department deals with tribal life and culture and administers development work at the local level, including education. The tribal welfare department lacks expertise in educational supervision and monitoring in particular. Majority of schools in tribal areas were without basic infrastructure facilities. Similarly in respect of pedagogy, it was found that there were rigid systems of formal schooling and teacher-centered instruction etc. have made the children wary of school. The inherent fear of tribal children towards the teacher, their inability to establish communication link with the teacher had reflected in low attendance and high dropout rates. The study showed that educational deprivation of tribals is linked to their poor economic condition and poverty. Poor health is another major hindrance in the promotion and participation of tribal children in education. Contagious diseases like scabies, eye infection and malaria were common in tribal areas and also affect children's attendance at school. According to UNESCO (1993) in rural areas of Pakistan, almost all children in the age of 4-6 years do not have access to pre-primary education. More than 60 percent of the adults are illiterate and more than 40 percent of school age children are out of school. Bylsma and lreland (2002) noted that in the World's poorest countries, particularly in rural areas, the rates of non-enrolment and school dropout are higher for girls than boys and approximately 10 percent of boys and 40 percent of girls are never enrolled in school. Prakash Louis (2016) observed that with onslaught of globalization and liberalisation, the tribals have been subjected to massive exploitation. With the advent of globalization, the market of the indigenous people moved from being limited to providing items for local consumption to international trade and hence the local tribes and communities have the right to determine and shape the future and direction of their children's education. Pulla Rao (2014) analysed the 'Status of primary education among scheduled tribes in Andhra Pradesh'. The specific objectives of study were to compare scheduled tribes' literacy rate with the overall literacy rate, to estimate and compare the rate of growth of enrolment of scheduled tribes and all children, to examine the district wise enrolment ratios of scheduled tribe children and all children, to analyse the proportion of scheduled tribes teachers to all teachers and to estimate the student teachers ratio at the District level in the State. The study was based on the secondary data related to the number of children enrolled and number of teachers working in primary schools by caste as obtained from the offices of the Bureau of Economics and Statistics, Hyderabad and the Commissioner and Director of school education, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. The study revealed that from 1961-1991, the tribal literacy rate in Andhra Pradesh increased from 4.4 percent to 13.6 percent but there was disparity in the literacy rate between males and females. In 1991, while the male tribal literacy was 20.1 percent, the female literacy rate was only 6.9 percent. The study also revealed that the enrolment of students in primary schools increased from 4,81,971 in 1989-90 to 8,35,476 in 1999-2000. The study also noted that the enrolment ratio was the highest in the Telangana region for boys as also for girls. The highest proportion of the enrolment of scheduled tribe boys to all boys was 34.31 percent in Khummam district and the lowest at 1.94 percent in Hyderabad district. The study noted that the dropout rate was much higher for girls (73.75 24 percent) as compared to boys (66.69). The student teacher ratio was lowest at 36.52 percent in Nellore district and highest at 206.85 percent in Hyderabad district.
III. Need for the Study The rationale for the study is ➢ The social development and economic development of tribals is interlinked with their educational status. Education has proved the best means for their development, but not reached the majority of the scheduled tribes.

➢ The Indian Council of Social Science Research and National Council of Education Research and
Training have initiated surveys on tribal education, but it needs no emphasis that the national surveys should be supplemented by intensive studies on individual tribal groups, so as to gain a clear and comprehensive understanding of the problems and perspective on tribal education in-different regions. ➢ Most of the literature on tribal education in India was descriptive in nature. But there is need to put the variables into theoretical frame work and analyse the variables at different levels of education. ➢ Very few attempts have been made to construct the composite educational development index for tribal population.

IV.
Scope of the Study In the present study, an attempt will be made to reasons for enrolment and dropout. Further, the study tried to find out the gender disparity in enrolment and dropout and disparity in education between different tribal groups. An attempt was also made to construct composite education index for different tribal groups and identify the problems faced by the respondents relating to education of tribal students. Such an attempt will pave way: ➢ To enact suitable policy measure to encourage tribal children to go to school and also to reduce dropout among tribal degree students ➢ To suggest suitable areas for the policy intervention. ➢ To evolve tribal group specific policies to improve the educational status and To suggest suitable programmes for developing awareness about various tribal welfare programme with special reference to education.

V.
Objectives The basic objectives of the study are: 1. To study the enrolment rate and dropout rate of tribal students in higher education, 2. To find out the gender disparity in education among the groups, 3. To suggest suitable measures to improve the educational status of the tribal population.

VI. Methodology of the study: Selection of the Area:
The current study is related to tribal students in Government Degree College, Arakuvally, Visakhapatnam district due to the fact that GDC, Arakuvalley occupies 1 st place in scheduled tribe students of Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh, constituting about 100% of tribal students of the College.

Selection of Sample:
The study adopted multistage stratified random sampling. In the first stage Visakhapatnam district will be selected, in the second stage Government degree college in Araku valley will be selected, in the third stage Degree groups ) and Horticulture will be selected, in the fourth stage, from each sub group 50 students will be selected, altogether 500 students will be selected. The required information for the study will be collected by administering an interview schedule to sample holders. SPSS tools will be used appropriate places for analysing data.

Data Collection:
The present study is primarily based on primary and secondary data information. Primary data is collected from the selected respondents with help of pre designed schedule and trust worthy information is picked up from each respondents. Observation method is used in some cases to cross check the information. Data has been collected from June 2022 to December 2022. The secondary data on higher education of the tribes at national, state and mandal level is obtained from the census reports and mandal/village level gram panchayats.

VII. Tools and Techniques are used in study:
After completion of the field survey, tabulation of the data was done by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Apart from analyzing the data and tabular analysis some of the relevant statistical tools have been used at appropriate places in the study.

Analysis of enrolment of tribal students
Educational status of population basically depends on enrolment of students in colleges/colleges. Hence the current study tried to analyse the enrolment of tribal students. Gross enrolment rate is defined as the percentage of students in college, relation to the population in respective graduation groups.

Graduation Group wise enrolment of tribes
The tribal students are enrolled at different groups in college. A comparative picture of total enrolment rate for different graduation groups revealed that BA have got high enrolment rate (93.89). This might be due the fact that BA parents have realized the value of formal education and encouraged the students to join college. For the overal graduation population the enrolment rate at First year (93.7 percent) was higher than that of Second year level (91.75 percent), Third year (84.62 percent) and cluster (70.40 percent). The high enrolment at First year might be due to the steps taken by the Government in relation to Tribal welfare hostels and District First year education programme. However, still there is a gap between the expected 100 • Email: editor@ijfmr.com

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Volume 5, Issue 3, May-June 2023 7 percent enrolment at First year level and the current situation. The enrolment rate at higher educational level is found to be low though higher education is a means of securing white collar employment. Due to lack of educational tradition in the family, they have no proper guidance, encouragement and motivation towards higher education. When they stay on rental basis they find it difficult to get room to stay because of their caste background and also because of their inability to afford the rent.

Gender disparity index in enrolment
As per the latest Human Development Report of South Asia one of the discriminations that girls are facing in India is the fact that they are not able to enjoy the right to education. While the overall enrolment has gone up especially after Tribal welfare hostel, the gender disparity in enrolment continues to be disturbing. This is more pronounced with the tribals. The enrolment of girls is low since parents of both sex related that return on investment in son's education is more tangible because he remains at home when he marries while the daughter is married away and hence the investment in education is a loss to her family. As such, the current study tried to analyse the gender disparity index in enrolment by calculating Sopher's disparity index. X1 represents the enrolment rate of boys and X2 represents the enrolment rate of girls. The estimated gender disparity index for different graduation groups is represented in Source: Calculations based on field survey The estimated gender disparity index indicated that the there had been low gender disparity in enrolment among the BA (0.2278). This might be due to the fact that BA families are realizing the value of female education and are sending the girls to colleges. However, the highest gender disparity in enrolment was found among the Horticulture, since the estimated Sopher's disparity index was 0.4465. This implies that still the Horticulture consider girls as burden and do not send them to colleges. The families are chambered by poverty and there had been inadequate access to local colleges. Religious and socio cultural tradition such as the early age at marriage is the reason for low female participation in colleges. Source: Calculation based on field survey *Statistically significant at 1 percent level **Statistically significant at 5 percent level ***Statistically significant at 10 percent level The enrolment of tribal boys as a whole is significantly influenced by father's occupation, landownership cost of education, distance to college/college and earnings. The same tendency was evidenced with regard to enrolment of tribal girls. The enrolment of the overall graduation boys and girls was significantly affected by father's occupation, land ownership, cost of education, distance to college/college and earnings. The cost of education and distance to college has a negative impact while other variables have positive impact.

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Volume 5, Issue 3, May-June 2023 9 Reasons for non-enrolment Source: Field survey (Figures in parentheses indicate percentage to total) For BA the basic reasons for non-enrolment were inadequate facility in the college and babysitting. However, 46.67 percent of B.Com students were non-enrolled due to health factor, 26.67 percent due to college related factor and 26.66 percent due to economic factors. Similarly, agricultural work of the family acts as a barrier for non-enrolment of B.Sc for 30.77 percent of the respondents and 23.07 percent of the respondents have stated that long distance to college/college as the reason for non-enrolment. For T & TM, the basic reasons for non-enrolment were dependence on agriculture, need to do baby sitting and household work, long distance to college/college and students being disabled. For Horticulture, the main reasons for non-enrolment were the necessity to help in farm work and household work, lack of interest, fear of lecturers and poor health. The general inference following from the analysis of enrolment is for overal graduation groups, the enrolment rate at First year level was higher than that of Second year and Third year level. Among different graduation groups, BA have higher enrolment rate and Horticulture have lower enrolment rate.

Gender disparity exists in enrolment.
The tribal students have availed the facilities of free uniform and midday meals to a greater extent. The crucial factors influencing the enrolment of boys and girls were father's occupation, landownership, earnings and distance to college. The important causes for non-enrolment of tribal boys and girls were students being involved in domestic work and inadequate facilities in the college.

Analysis of dropout of tribal students
Enrolment of students in colleges can enhance the level of literacy only when the dropout rates are minimal. But students leave the college without the literacy, numeracy and life skills that lay a foundation for learning through life (Singh, 2001).
The tribal students dropped from college and they stayed at home to care for young students , collect firewood and work in the fields. lnspite of all the initiatives formulated to promote tribal education, high dropout of tribal students in general and tribal girls in particular still persists due to certain socio-economic factors which is a continuous challenge to the educational policy makers.

Stage wise dropout of tribal students
Many research studies have found that dropout is the most common among tribal students and they dropout either due to poverty or the necessity to do the household work. Table-6 brings out the stage wise dropout of boys and girls for different graduation groups.  61 percent). The lowest dropout rate was found among the BA (28.40 percent). This implies that BA attaches much importance to education and they see that the students who were enrolled complete education. An analysis of stage wise dropout indicated that the dropout rate was the lowest at the First year level. But it was found to be more at the Second year and Third year. This in turn might be due to the fact that students after the age of 10 are employed as farm assistants in land and they discontinue studies. A close perusal of Table 36 indicates that for all the graduation groups, the female dropout rate was higher than male dropout rate. For overall graduation groups at total level of education, while the male dropout rate was 29.67 percent, the female dropout rate was 51.20 percent. This might be due to early marriage for girls or their reluctance to send the girls to colleges located in long distance. Further, tribal cultural rituals, particularly marriage and death rituals need the presence of the girls continuously for many days; this disrupts their studies resulting in dropout.

Reasons for dropout as stated by the respondents:
The tribal student's dropout due to household work, illness, tough syllabus etc. G -Girls Figures in parenthesis indicates percentage to total number of dropouts Non availability of colleges particularly high colleges is the crucial problem since due to nonavailability of high colleges, a student has to go far off places for getting higher education or by staying at boarding house of the college. This provides a heavy toll in the economic aspect of their families who are already poor since a sizeable amount of income has to be spent for the education. This problem was found to be more experienced by Horticulture as compared to other graduation groups. The current study supports the finding of Verma (2005) that if students have to travel long distance to college/college, parents are less likely to allow their students to make the journey because of the risk to personal safety. Though All India education survey (2002) states that a total of 80 percent of tribal habitations have colleges within less than 1 km radius at First year level and at upper First year level a total of 67 percent habitations have been provided within a radius of 3 kilometer , this was far from reality for the tribal population.
Poverty and early marriage were indicated as the main reasons for dropout of girls thereby supporting the view of Tiwari (2008) that early marriage is the main reason for dropout of tribal girls. Household chores, particularly taking care of siblings in poorer families are a significant factor for dropout of girls among all the graduation groups.
For majority of the tribal students poverty is the main reason and 18.11 percent of boys and 12.87 of girls have dropped out due to poverty. This is in accordance with the view of Bhatt (2002) that students left college better due to the compulsion of supplementing their family income or due to illness and due to the inability of the parents to meet the cost of education and Promila Yadava (2009) that acute economic deprivation and social disabilities accelerate the problem of illiteracy among scheduled tribes. The overall inference drawn from the analysis of dropout is ➢ Among different groups of tribes, dropout rate was the highest for Horticulture and lowest for BA. ➢ Dropout rate was found to be higher at the Second year and Third year as compared to First year. ➢ Dropout rate was found to be higher for girls as compared to boys. ➢ Father's occupation, distance to college, cost of education and property were the significant factors influencing dropout. ➢ The basic reasons attributed for dropout rate were-non availability of colleges, harsh attitude of lecturers and inadequate facilities in the colleges. VIII. Conclusion ➢ The tribal parents realize the need for educating the students. But there had been only limited awareness about the facilities and assistance provided by the Government to promote tribal education. ➢ The tribal parents are willing to educate the students up to primary or second year. ➢ The tribal parents prefer to provide higher level of education for boys as compared to girls. ➢ The tribal parents have the fear that the culture and way of living of students will change if they are educated. ➢ The location of colleges at distant places and inadequate transport facilities from the habitations are major hurdles in tribal education and ➢ Each tribal group is in isolation and there is absence of communication facilities between tribal groups.