Education in Tribal India

The book deals with educational development among the tribals in West Bengal, which is one of the vital issues in modern India. The study was carried out among four tribal communities, who belong to different traditional economic types, namely, the Lodha-gatherer hunter, Mahali-bamboo artisan, Koraearth worker and the Santal-settled agriculturist in a tribal populated area in Paschim Mednipur District of West Bengal. The studied people live in the same ecology enjoying almost the same educational facilities ( at the primary level) as well as educational privilege in the pursuit of their education. The outcome of this empirical research work gives a comprehensive and comparative picture on demography, ethnography, economy and different aspects of literacy among the tribal communities. Moreover, the study identified a number of educational problems and suggested some important measures for the development of education among them. readers will find different educational results in the light of environment and cultural background. It is not a tedious book and is a very informative one. This piece of work will certainly be useful to research scholars in Anthropology and other allied disciplines. The administrators and educational planners will find it very useful.

Nabakumar Duary (b.1965) received his M.Sc. degree in Anthropology with specialisation in Social-Cultural Anthropology from the University of Calcutta and Ph.D. degree from the Ranchi University. He worked in the Institute of Social Research and Applied Anthropology, Kolkata, as a Research Fellow and received the prestigious fellowship from the Anthropological Survey of India (An. S.I.) At present Dr. Duary is working in the An. S.I., Kolkata. He has published over three dozen research papers in edited books and academic journals. He had co edited a book entitled Some Aspects of Indian Society and Culture in 2005. The focal area of his research is tribal and folk culture of India and he has conducted intensive fieldwork among the primitive tribal groups and major tribal communities in Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and West Bengal. He has also made a significant contribution in the field of tribal culture and folk painting. He has a deep interest in the discipline of Anthropology and is associated with many professional anthropological research organizations.