Right to Education and the Status of Tribal Education in Manipur: An Analytical Study

ABSTRACT The Right to Education (RTE), 2009 made elementary education free and compulsory for all children between the age of 6-14 years. Further, the constitution under article 21A cemented the RTE as a fundamental right. This means that all children irrespective of caste, class, religion, gender, and background have the right to approach the court to get their rights accorded in case of non-implementation. However, despite this constitutional commitment in place, education as a right is still variable in terms of its reach. A considerable number of children of the poor and economically backward groups, and those of the tribal groups are not in schools despite the existence of neighbourhood schools. The reasons for these children not being in school is deeply worrying, and is a critical concern of this study. The scheduled tribes inhabiting the hilly regions of the state of Manipur are socially, economically, politically, and also educationally backward. The present educational discourse reveals that numerous bottlenecks still stand in the way of equitable education as envisioned in the policies and programs of the government. Lack of infrastructure, teaching-learning equipment, disproportion of pupil-teacher ratios, quality education, teacher absenteeism, poverty, illiteracy, etc., are some of the common problems in India (Kamra & Sheokand, 2016).