Though the past few decades have been characterised by massive educational expansion, statistics shows that inequality in education among different social strata continues and even widening in spite of the educational growth. The Census 2011 data on educational level reflects the situation in the State.
Both the Union and the State Governments are trying hard to raise the educational level among the people with various interventions, including the Right To Education (RTE) Act. However, little have they helped in containing sharp inequalities in education level among the general castes, Dalits and Adibasis.
With a population of 4.19 crore, Odisha has only 17.83 lakh graduates and above degree holders. Among them 1.17 lakh are Dalits and 64,859 are Adibasis.
Among the Dalit graduates, 84,547 have graduate degree other than technical degree. 13, 481 Dalits have Post Graduate degree other than technical degree.14, 594 Dalits have engineering and technology degree, while 1,113 have MBBS degree.
Amongst the Adibasis, 46,200 have graduate degrees other than technical degrees, while 6,251 have Post Graduate degrees and 804 Adibasis are MBBS.
This speaks volumes about the gross inequalities in the educational level between general caste, Adibasis and Dalits.
So far as literacy is concerned, both the Adibasis and the Dalits are lagging behind. The State has 72.87 per cent of literates, while the percentage of Dalits is 69.02 and Adibasi is 52.24.
Out of 4.19 crore population, 2.67 crore are literates, while 43.03 lakh Dalits are literates, 42.15 lakh Adibasis are in the literate list. Out of 2.67 crore literates, 77.14 lakh have reported that their highest level education is Under Primary level, which constitutes 28.85 per cent of literates.
Among the 43.03 lakh Dalit literates, 13.91 lakh have reported their highest education level is Under Primary, which constitutes 32.33 percent.
Interestingly, there has been a deviation in case of Adibasis as out of 42.15 lakh literates, 13.85 lakh, which constitutes 32.86 per cent, have reported their highest education level as Under Primary.
Sadly, a majority of the both male and female Adibasi literates have reported their highest education level is Under Primary.