Educational Development of Scheduled Castes: Looking Ahead

Recognising the role of education as an effective instrument for bringing about changes in Scheduled Castes in their socioeconomic and sociocultural conditions in an elaborate programme of preMatric and postMatric scholarships, reservations of seats in the schools and colleges, establishement of hostels and ashram schools and many other beneficial schemes are in operation for the last five decades. It is of considerable interest to find out how these facilities have been actually beneficial for them and what is the level of their progress in the field of education. This book is aimed at knowing the truth in this regard. In fact, the educational progress of the Scheduled Castes suffers from two deficiencies; first, they lag very much behind the rest of the population in their educational achievement and second, among them some group have made far more, rapid progress than others. The benefits of the special educational facilities for the Scheduled Castes have not accrued equitable to the most backward communities among them. As a result, severe interand intracaste and intraand intrastate differentials have given rise to a separate class among them. This study based on the data, identifies the castes and the castegroups which have benefited due to differential utilization of the incentives and other protective programmes and suggests measures to bring about an all round educational development of the Scheduled Castes. A bold and pragmatic step is called for to give a new orientation to the present policy of educational development of the Scheduled Castes, if we are really interested in ushering in equality through education.