Odisha’s changing economic environment demands expansion of the widest scope of employment for the marginalised communities with equal opportunity to quality education for more employability. It will not only arrest unemployment among the marginalised but also increase their representation in private sphere.
As a step in creating quality opportunity, the residential schools run by the ST and SC Development Department should improve the quality of education by introducing English medium from primary level in order to improve the standard of poor SC and ST students for higher and technical education such as medical, engineering and management. The Navodaya Vidyalayas in each districts have provisions of reservation for the SCs and STs as per their population in the respective district and the Ekalavaya model residential schools for STs, Kasturaba Gandhi Valika Vidyalayas, Kendriya Vidyalayas and Sainik Schools also have reservation for SCs and STs and BPl families.
A recent decision of the State Government with ‘Anwesha’ scheme to support the educational expenses of poor SC and ST students in private English medium schools is welcoming but it can only cater to very limited number of students. There has been efforts by Government in backward districts such as Malkanagiri,Mayurbhanj and Sundergarh for English medium education and urban complexes are being built for ST students at Bhubaneswar, Brahmapur and Rourkela to assist the students for pursuing medical, engineering and business administration but all the efforts cover only a very small fraction of students of the marginalized section leaving the majority in distress condition. The condition of Government run schools where majority of rural poor and marginalized students depend for education are weakening in quality. The percentage of SC and ST students in English medium schools in the State is very insignificant in comparison to other social groups. As the English language become the passport to business, administration, legal profession, information technology, higher research which are now a major source of employment and social prestige, these students need to get quality education in schools to get equipped. The marginalized communities are being largely underrepresented in different sectors of our economy and governance due restricted access to higher and technical education in the State.
Odisha has been progressing with educational institutions owned by Government, private and joint ventures which is very much encouraging for the overall development of the State. For a number of reasons, Bhubaneswar, Khurda and Puri region is emerging as a major educational hub in eastern India. The education policy of the State Government has been openly encouraging private universities and public private partnership in building quality educational institutions. The State Government has brought legislations in favour of private university such as Vedanta, Sri Sri Ravisankar University, KIIT, XIMB, Centurion, and Siskhya O Anusandahan, ICFAI and many more. The public and private sector mining and industrial companies are partnering for the development of medical, engineering and business schools in different parts of the State with active State patronage. The State Government has been ensuring land and other related facilities for setting up educational institutions. Along with private and joint ventures, there are about 25 national institutions such as NISER, AIMS, IIIT and IIM which are imparting higher and technical education in the State. It has also become a destination for students from neighbouring States to pursue higher education. The south and north -west parts of Odisha, i.e. Brahmapur, Rourkela, Jharasuguda, Sambalpur, Bhadrak-Baleswar are also emerging as important educational hubs. While the State is providing all kinds of support, these institutions need to be helpful to the students. The opportunity of higher and technical education should be inclusive of all region encompassing all social groups specially the marginalized sections. In order to prepare the students of the marginalized communities to access the emerging opportunities there should be English medium education from primary level which is highly required to shape the socio-cultural and intellectual capacity of the students to cope with the emerging highly aggressive environment.
In the backward areas education is a big challenge. The students of these regions and marginalized communities are the change agents of their family, community and society at large. The present educational status of the marginalized is highly discouraging while preparing for the future. The literacy rate of Odisha is 73.5 per cent as per census 2011 which is less than national average that is 74.04 per cent. The female literacy is less than male literacy.
The literacy rate among the STs is 52.24 per cent and the male female literacy rate is 63.70 per cent and 41.20 per cent respectively. The literacy rate of SCs is marginally higher than STs that is 79.21 per cent for male and 58.76 per cent for female. The literacy rate of religious minorities such as Christian and Muslims in the State is less than the State average. The ST and SC Development Department in its annual report for 2014-2015 says that 8, 63,114 ST students and 6, 25,590 SC students have availed pre-matric scholarship and only 37,848 ST and 47,992 SC students have got post-matric scholarship. The students of the marginalised communities have a higher percentage of dropout at primary and secondary level and very few join the higher education. The higher and technical education has become expensive.
The existence of huge gap in literacy rate among people of different regions, social groups and genders shows continuation of disparity and deprivation. The scheduled areas, KBK region and north-west districts are extremely backward in terms of basic educational infrastructure. There is lack of teacher, school building, books, dress, learning materials for students. The parents are in abject poverty and seasonally migrate in search of work, which discourages students to concentrate on classroom resulting in higher dropout. The condition of residential schools is also qualitatively poor in service and not being improved to meet the emerging need of the students. These hostels are injecting social segregation and inferiority among students because of poor quality of food, accommodation and also quality teaching. He/she has to struggle at each stage of learning with language problem. It has been found that many of the students of marginalised section are suffering from inferiority of communication due to language problem at higher education stage. The primary education level should have English medium which can pave the way for higher education. The tribal language and regional language has not been helpful to the marginalized section to improve their socio-economic status by accessing employment and source of income. Experience shows the students of marginalized communities having English medium education have produced better result enabling them to access better opportunities. The result of students of Ekalavya Model School is much better than the other schools for STs.
The English medium schools are mostly located in urban areas and run by private bodies, missionaries and other religious bodies which are almost inaccessible for the marginalised sections. Therefore it is the Government who is the only protector of quality education of the marginalized poor in rural and backward areas of the State. So it will be extremely good if all the SC and ST residential schools can be introduced with English medium education which will be a revolutionary step to change the socio-economic condition of the marginalised as well as of the State. It will open up more opportunities in a wider way and facilitate their entries to different spear of social life of the state.
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