Insecurity among Indigenous People in the Attainment of Basic Education: A Brief Review of Purulia District of West Bengal

Abstract

Education is the basis of social and economic development of a society. But, unless and until a society is literate and aware, it can never progress further. According to the Indian Census, a person who can read and write a simple message in any language with understanding is considered literate. The present paper tries to analyse the difference in literacy between male and female tribal people in the different blocks of Purulia district of West Bengal, where the concentration of indigenous people is higher, and the study also focuses on the gender gap in the literacy level of the tribal people with the spatio-temporal changes from 2001 to 2011. The study is based on secondary data analysis using statistical methods and GIS techniques for cartographic presentation, highlighting the gender differential in the achievement of basic literacy and suggesting possible measures for reducing this gap to promote educational security among indigenous communities.