Tribal Sub-plan and the Question of Education

I. Introduction Almost after 25 years since the India became independent, for the first time the government of India realized to give 7.5% of the total plan outlay in 5th Five Year Plan (1973-74 to 1978-79) under “Tribal Sub-plan” strategy. The Tribal Sub-plan is a strategic policy initiative by the government for the overall development of adivasis. The basic idea of Tribal sub-plan is- “allocating the amount for tribal from the total budget outlay at least proportionate to their population”. This strategy has been adopted to bring the adivasis at par with other sections of the society and to protect them from exploitation. The basic objective of the strategy was to initiatie a process of development broadly in egalitarian framework and the adivasi community to take advantage of the modern (neo-liberal) way of development. Some important features of the TSP are - reduction of poverty and unemployment, providing opportunities for sustainable livelihoods, upheaval of education and health status and providing social and financial security. After independence, one of the main plans under which various scheme of development work for adivasis was Integrated Tribal Development Plan (ITDP), however this plan was able to reach only up to 1/3rd of the population of tribal. It means only the dominant tribal groups somehow able to take the benefit out of this plan. Since, the performances of the development plan were not satisfactory, hence it has been decided to cover the entire population by the end of 6th Five Year Plan in 10 years. Hence within this framework following strategy has been adopted- i. Development plan has to be adopted based on tribal concentrated areas. These tribal communities comprised around 70% of the population of tribal. ii. Household (family based) development strategy has to be adopted for the dispersed tribal communities, which comprises around 25% of the tribal population. iii. The remaining special development plan was to be adopted for small and primitive tribal communities, which comprises 5% of the total tribal population Though, the identification of the tribal communities has already been done in 1974, but keeping dynamicity of the society in current context (for example the tea-migrants in North-East regions and migrants in Delhi etc.), the development strategies to be implemented, the identification and proper mapping of the tribal communities based on area and language is very important so as to ensure that all tribal communities are accessing the benefits within the TSP. Not the least, looking at the gender justice, one need further stratification of the development strategies based on the percentage of tribal women’s population. II. The Tribal Rights and Development The two most important tribal rights - protection and development has been put forth under 5th schedule and tribal sub-plan respectively. This, two provisions of the government which has to be implemented in a same area, the constitution of India has been amended for the 5th Schedule in 1976 to “ensure that effective simultaneous action could be taken throughout the tribal area for protection and development of the tribal people”. Later, in 1996 PESA and recently, the Forest Right Act (FRA) in 2006 have been added as another pillar for the development and protection of tribal people. Interestingly, all four plans and provisions are compact. One of the first initiatives, taken in 1974 under 5th Five Year Plan was the pooling of financial resources of sub-plan areas. The pooled resources constitutes of – expenditure from the state, outlay from the central government, supplementary outlays by the central government under article 275 of the constitution if the programme is very well performing and finally outlays of the other cooperative institutions working in the sub-plan areas. However, there are several provisions which have been included looking at the dynamic socio-economic activities in the sub-plan areas tribal communities. Recently, one of the major objectives of Tribal Sub-Plan in 11th Five Year Plan is “to reform tribal Sub-Plan and restore its dynamic character to make it an effective instrument for tribal development”. However, even in this high stage of information efficiency and resistance against the corruption, there is huge lapses and diversion of TSP funds. In fact, insufficient fund allocation and fund diversion were always the major issues in Tribal Sub-Plan. Table 1 shows the budget allocation to STs from 2007-08 to 2010-11. We see that proportion of total Plan Allocation for STs Percentage never went above 5% except in year 2012-13. Table 1: Plan Allocation for STs from the Union Budget Plan Allocation for STs from the Union Budget (Rs. in Crore) Year Total Union Budget Plan STP Allocation % Allocated in TSP Lost Amount 2007-08RE 158491 7447 4.69869 3.50131 2008-09RE 183528 8771 4.779107 3.420893 2009-10RE 233386 8600.6 3.68514 4.51486 2010-11BE 284284 10363.3 3.645404 4.554596 2011-12BE 327396 17959 5.485406 2.714594 2012-13BE 391027 21710.11 5.552074 2.647926 Total 11th FYP 1578112 74851.01 4.743073 3.456927 Source: Union Budget, BE-Budget Estimate, RE- Revised Estimate Similarly, Table 2 shows downward movement in percentage of expenditure over the estimated budget under TSP. Since there are lot of funds not at all allotted, getting diverted or unspent and hence huge funds got accumulated as inventory stock. Hence, union government further tried to reduce the allocation until the stock is being used in a better way. This further deteriorated the situation. Though, the constitutional provision of spending in education is 6% of the budget, so even within the TSP budget allocation, it should be same as the provision is. However, once this amount is already accumulated, the lapses amount must be invested in the most basic need of the adivasis - the protection and then education. For protection, government can create land bank from the already acquired and futile land, which is not used for any other purposes, can be distributed among the landless tribals. The government can also buy back the snatched land from the tribal by creating extra fund in addition to TSP, as supplementary scheme. Since, now most of the lapses TSP amount can be used in education by increasing the per capita spending on education at several stages. Coincidentally, newspaper reporting states that, failure rate of the students at secondary level in Jharkhand is one of the highest in 2011, whereas in the year 2009-10 government is able to spend around 62% only. In Jharkhand, 72% fail Class 12 Science, even Minister’s children Manoj Prasad. Of the 2.93 lakh students who took the state intermediate examination (+2) conducted by the Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC) in 2011, less than 1.25 lakh have been successful. The failure rate is more than 55%. In Science, the pass percentage has been a dismal 28%. Among the students who failed-are the son and daughter of state Human Resource Minister Baidhnath Ram. (Indian Express, June 15, 2011) Table 2: Budget Allocation for Tribal (In Rs. Crore) Year Budget Estimates Revised Estimate Expenditure % of Spending over BE 2006-07 1656.90 1652.68 1647.37 99.42 2007-08 1791.71 1719.17 1524.32 88.63 2008-09 2121.00 1970.00 1805.91 85.17 2009-10 3205.50 2000.00 1996.79 62.35 2010-11 3206.50 Source: Planning commission Hence, there are problems of inadequate fund allocation, under utilization of funds, the diversion of funds and administrative issue are also been seen. Though, the initiatives under TSP deal with various development programme, but here we will emphasize the aspect of education at various levels. One of the very important aspects of policy enforcement is to ensure the fund under the Tribal Sub-Plan reaching the last person in the thread of government development plan. Also, since in a state like Jharkhand, the per capita expenditure on education is meager, so increasing the per capita expenditure through TSP can work like a catalyst for expanding the domain of learning for the tribal students. III. Basic Problem of Education and Recommendations “There are places on earth, in every country, where, for various reasons good schools cannot be built and good teachers cannot or do not want to go”- Sugata Mitra (A) Problems and Solutions in Primary and Secondary Education Problem 1: Why teachers do not go to school, particularly in the interior areas? Solution- Higher the distance of school from the district headquarters higher should be the salary. For this government can do some kind of radius and circumference mapping of the schools and can give more incentives to teachers, who is teaching in far distant schools from district headquarters. Problem 2: Students cannot be failed till class eight, monitoring and the efficiency of para-teacher. What is the Quality Check? Solution-After completing primary school at local levels, it should be compulsory that some percentage of students (category wise) must qualify for some of the best residential school for secondary and higher secondary level of schooling at district level. Similarly, some percentage of the Senior Secondary school students (category wise) must qualify for IIMs, IITs, NLSIUs and other disciplines. If students are not able to qualify teachers should be punished and if the students qualify teacher should be awarded. This way monitoring of the students can be ensured for quality of education. In case of para-teachers, competitive examination should be taken, if they qualify they will become the regular teacher otherwise, they will become the para-educators and get the same salary as they were getting earlier. Those who could not qualify will assist the regular teacher in report making, MDM and homework of the students as in western countries. Problem 3: Why education in the mother tongue or bilingual/multilingual education is important? Solution- there must be mapping of area wise language and the proper bilingual and multilingual education should be started rather than starting the basic education in alien language. Problem 4: What is the concept of we are strictly more than 5%? Solution-Once Rajiv Gandhi said that, out of one rupee he sends to the country, it is just the 15 paise that reach to the people. But for tribal, within the Tribal sub-plan there are under-allocation, under-spending and diversion of funds, so in the case of tribal it must be the spending between 1 paise to 5 paise out of one rupee under TSP. So, we are in the club of below 5% spending even though we are 8.2% of the total population. Some Initiatives that can be taken for Educational Development at primary and secondary level- (i) Scholarships to ST students in Class I to IV (ii) Scholarship for Technical and Professional Courses (iii) Merit Scholarship to Senior Secondary Students (iv) Free uniform to ST Children (v) Higher amount of Scholarship to girls’ students particularly those who are BPL. (vi) Special Scholarship to Primitive Tribal Groups (vii) Grant-in-aid to S.T. Hostels at every level (viii) Coaching Centers in Hostels (ix) Prizes to Students (x) Eklavya Model Residential Schools not exactly as it exist in some states (xi) Residential Schools for Talented Students (xii) Special Schools to be made for physically challenged students in every district (xiii) Promotion of the Scholarship for Sports at the primary level itself. (xiv) Separate Hostel for tribal girls and boys in capital, districts and block levels. (B) Problem and Solution at Higher Education Level Problem 1: Need of the Institution, which can create the quality research environment? Solution-In Central and Eastern Tribal India, there should be one center of excellence where the quality discussion and debate can be done and also it put some impacts on the state and central government mainly in the tribal issues. Initiatives for Higher Education for Tribal - (i) Overseas Scholarship and providing opportunities of coaching for IITs, managements and Civils Services? (ii) Providing the status to Agriculture and allied activities as an Industry? (iii) Various affirmative actions by the private sector, where CII can take initiatives. Taking all but education as a focus point following model can be used to deliver the fund in an efficient manner. There are various model exist in different states for implementation of TSP such as model by Chhatishgarh, Gujarat, Haryana etc. Similar, model can also be designed even for a state like Jharkhand giving importance to Gram Sabha with less political interference. I suggest, there should be TSP cell at all levels consists of tribal people at centere, state, district, block level, panchayat level and finally at Gram Sabha level.