Scheduled tribes make significant contributions to the nation's economic, social, and cultural development. The scheduled tribes constitute about 8.63% of the total population of India, along with 26.21%, 22.85%, and 30.62% respectively of the total population in Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh. Tribal women constitute almost half of the total tribal population. Education is one of the most important instruments for improving tribal women's ability, empowering them to face emerging difficulties in their lives and ensuring their social and economic well-being. Education minimizes social and economic disparities in society by increasing individual productivity and efficiency and increasing awareness about their rights. The present paper analyses the educational status of tribal women on the basis of literacy rate, percentage of population present at different education levels, gross enrolment ratio and dropout rates. The paper attempts to examine the difference in educational status among tribal women of Jharkhand and India. The study also highlights the difference in educational status of Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh. The findings of the study highlights that the literacy rate of tribal women is very low. The literacy rate of tribal women in Jharkhand is 46.20%, which is lower than the literacy rate of tribal women (49.36%) in India. The percentage of tribal women is continuously decreasing from primary level to graduate and above level at national as well as state level. The gross enrolment ratio (GER) of tribal girls in Jharkhand is 40.0% at the higher secondary level, which is much lower than the GER at the primary level which is 107.4%. The GER of tribal girls in Jharkhand at the higher secondary level is lower than the national tribal girls' GER (53.6%), as well as the GER of tribal girls in Odisha (41.0%) and Chhattisgarh (68.7%). Simultaneously the dropout rate of tribal girls is very much high in secondary education. The fact is that a large number of tribal women have missed educational opportunities at various educational levels. There is a great need to provide them educational opportunities to empower them so that they can become socially and economically self-reliance and can create their own identity in their community.
Jimmy Gupta (2026) studied this question.