Education for tribal children: An engine for human development

Abstract

The Indian Constitution assigns special status to the Scheduled Tribes (STs). Traditionally referred to as adivasis, vanbasis, tribes, or tribals; STs constitute about 8% of the Indian population. There are around 573 Scheduled Tribes living in different parts of the country, having their own languages different from the one mostly spoken in the State where they live. There are more than 270 such languages in India. Accordingly to the 2001 census, the tribal population in India is about 67.8 million. The largest number of tribals is in the undivided Madhya Pradesh (16.40 million), followed by Orissa (7 million) and Bihar (6.6 million). However, the largest proportion of tribals in total population is in Mizoram (95%), followed