1.1 INTRODUCTION
I was on my coworker’s bike in a tribal village of Banswara, Rajasthan, when, turning a corner, we passed a girl whose features were strikingly similar to my own. Looking into her face for that moment was like glimpsing a mirrored reality: one in which I had grown up in a rural village, attended a small school with a dripping roof and lessons in a language I couldn’t understand, dropped out due to lack of support, or the need to help my family in the fields, or because I was set to be married. If my family was better off, I might have gone as far as the college in the town of Banswara. But most probably, I would have been immersed in one demographic my whole life, without being exposed to new communities and different ways of thinking, perhaps without gaining the confidence or skillsets needed to ever venture past my village.
These are the stories I hear over and over, narrated to me by both men and women in the field. Many of the community members I meet have never left the villages where they were born and did not complete their schooling. Of the women in particular, many cannot read or write, and some have never attended school at all.
As evinced from the very fact of me writing this, that girl and I are not so much from different realities as different planets. I grew up in an upper-middle class family in the Global North that had the time, resources, and social freedom to prioritize education. My circumstances offered me the ability to (albeit almost entirely on financial aid) attain a quality high school education and eventually attend one of the most well-known universities in America, whose endowment is equivalent to some smaller nations’ GDPs. There, I had access to some of the best thinkers in their fields; I had the opportunity to meet people who could go on to shape the fluxes of law and policies; and in the year after my graduation, I had the freedom to not just live in a different country but travel it extensively, learning and growing as I went – about how power dynamics can be wrought and shaped, how people from different cultures think and act, what opportunities might lie beyond the spheres I knew.
How many generations would it take the girl I saw to achieve the Indian parallel – say, gain entry into a top university like an IIT? What about an international school: How long would it take for her to have the choice of living in a different country, forget the next town or city over? How long would it take her to gain access to the diversity of people, thought, opportunities I have been lucky enough to encounter? Of course, these are questions about money, privilege, and the sheer luck related to the circumstances of our birth, but circumscribing it all is the question of one’s right to choice and self-determination – in other words, the ability to not be constrained to a singular path due to financial restrictions or sociocultural norms.
I recognize that there are multiple avenues to social mobility and financial security. But globally, education has proven time and time again to be the most effective way for people to break the cycle of poverty. Aside from the direct financial benefits, education also increases equality by reducing the chasms between social classes. Notably, it also serves as a barrier from a wide variety of social and health issues, ranging from gender-based crimes to diseases to exploitation.
Data from international government organizations (IGOs) like the United Nations and the World Bank reveal that education is one of those invaluable resources that is universally beneficial, regardless of the regional context. Similarly, Nobel Laureate economist James Heckman found that high-quality primary education can lift multiple generations out of poverty.
Completing education seems to be even more crucial for adults than children. A 2017 UNESCO policy paper found that world poverty could be reduced by more than half if all adults completed secondary school. In the same vein, the World Bank has found that just one additional year of schooling increases a person’s annual earnings by 10 percent a year, a figure that’s even higher when just considering women.
Unfortunately, 272 million children across the world are still currently out of school. While the decade of 2000-2010 saw significant progress in reducing global out-of-school rates, this progress has halted almost completely in recent years. This is despite the UN’s goal of achieving universal secondary education by 2030.
Let us now consider tribal populations, who are some of the most marginalized and impoverished communities across the world, including India. It would seem that any Indian NGO supporting Adivasi communities, especially those with a focus on livelihoods, would emphasize education to help their beneficiaries escape poverty in accordance with their stated aim. However, this logic is stymied by an oft-repeated narrative pushed forth about Adivasis, mirroring stereotypes of indigenous people in other countries: that Adivasis are the “stewards of the forest,” whose ways of life must remain wholly unadulterated from the “outside world.” In other words, indigenous communities are often seen as naive peoples whose way of life must be preserved both for their own good and for the sake of environmental and cultural preservation – a view that is as damaging as it is patronizing. Due to the fact that high-quality education is often concentrated in larger cities, the very idea of encouraging the pursuit of education to tribal populations is anathema to organizations with this conception of Adivasis. To do so would be to encourage opening up tribal villages to broader connectivity, and sanction tribal people to take part in our now-globalized world.
I would be remiss not to acknowledge a focal obstacle to education for many impoverished families, especially those who are agricultural laborers: they are often ensnared in the cyclical trap of needing money to provide their children with the education that would bring their families money. Without this starting amount, children are forced to drop out of school and assist their families in the field, or tend to their younger siblings while their parents are at work.
This means that Indian NGOs must fill the gap by supporting Adivasi families in their ability to keep their children in school. For example, NGOs currently working with Adivasis on agricultural livelihoods can teach communities ways to increase agricultural productivity and profit off the surplus, as well as grow their own food and save money by avoiding purchases from the market. NGOs can then encourage those families to put the accrued money toward keeping their children enrolled. Concurrently, NGOs must emphasize education for tribal adults, supporting those who dropped out to finish their schooling and thereby increase their earnings.
I will explore the dilemma between cultural preservation and globalization in part II of this blog. This article will focus primarily on the benefits of education for impoverished peoples. I will explore the topic from both a global and South Asian context, with a special focus on Adivasi populations. Next, I will detail some major issues from which education shields people, especially Adivasis. I will end by buttressing the argument that Indian NGOs working with Adivasis must focus a substantial part of their efforts on supporting children and adults to finish their schooling – even if it means beneficiaries leaving their villages to do so.
WHY EDUCATION IS IMPORTANT
2.1 FOR LOW-INCOME COUNTRIES
Education is crucial both for low-income countries and for impoverished populations within those countries. The wealth disparity between high- and low-income countries is primarily caused by the difference not in natural resources but human capital – the investment in citizens’ education, mental health, and skill sets. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has found that if all adults completed secondary education, 420 million could be lifted out of poverty, reducing the total number of impoverished people across the world by more than half. And according to the United Nations Development Programme, if all students in low-income countries had just basic reading skills, almost 171 million people could escape extreme poverty. Speaking purely economically, returns on investment for education in low-income countries are astonishingly high, with access to education disproportionately benefitting those countries by a near-double increase in earnings compared to the gain in rich countries.
Up till now, education has already made remarkable strides, reducing 40 percent of the global population that lives in extreme poverty. It also accounts for two-thirds of income growth since 1980 among the world’s poorest 20 percent. Looking at it from the flip side, the doubling of global income per capita that we have witnessed from 1980-2019 would only have been half as much without the spread of education. (However, it should be noted that these statistics are calculated based on the international poverty line of 2.15 USD a day – a shamefully low number given that the median daily income for Global North countries ranged between 50-60 USD in 2023.)
Still, there is a need to focus on low-income countries, which have experienced slower overall economic and educational growth than their middle-income counterparts. In the former, 19 percent of primary school-aged children are out of school compared to just 3 percent in high-income countries. Those numbers jump to 38 percent versus 2 percent, respectively, for lower secondary-aged students. And looking within low-income countries, children from the poorest 20 percent of families in those countries are 8 times as likely to be out of school as children from the richest 20 percent of families in those countries.
It’s crucial to highlight that widespread access to education has been the driving factor behind global poverty reduction, not the educational quality itself. Although the quality of education has plateaued worldwide starting from 1980, the portion of the global population with no schooling declined from 35 percent in 1980 to 15 percent in 2019. Correspondingly, the percentage of adults with at least some secondary education rose from 25 percent in 1980 to 60 percent in 2019.
2.2 THE SOUTH ASIAN SITUATION
Of all global regions, South and Central Asia have the second-highest numbers of children out of school (preceded only by sub-Saharan Africa). In fact, India and Pakistan are two of the six countries that contain over a third of all primary-aged out-of-school children. It should come as no surprise, then, that UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report found that if all South Asian adults completed secondary education, poverty in the region could be cut down by almost two-thirds.
Between 1990-2010, income equality skyrocketed in high- and middle-income countries, with class schisms widening the most in China and India. Due to higher demand for skilled employees than supply, those with higher education levels benefitted more, widening the gap between the high and low socioeconomic classes. Even today, India’s high student returns to postsecondary education demonstrate the country’s growing demand for highly skilled labor.
The case of India has also spotlighted two salient points made in the above paragraphs: first, the efficacy of quantity over quality education. India’s District Primary Education Program, established in 1994, expanded access to primary education without improving its quality, yet still accounted for a 13 percent increase in earnings per year of education. Second, the increased benefits that adults who complete schooling gain over children: in India, a year of primary education will increase an individual’s earnings by 2-3 percent, but someone with a year of secondary education would earn 6-8 percent more than that, and people with postsecondary education earn an additional 13 percent.
MARGINALIZED DEMOGRAPHICS
3.1 THE GENDER ANGLE
Not surprisingly, low-income countries have higher out-of-school rates for girls than boys (11 million young girls versus 9 million young boys in 2017). For girls in such countries, the pursuit of education is often a path snarled with social obstacles. In rural, especially tribal communities, it’s common practice to start looking for a groom early – when the girl is around fourteen or fifteen, so she can be married off by 18. (Even in my field work, the vast majority of young women I met were married at 18.) Another dominant issue is the lack of clean toilets for girls who begin their periods. Even if toilets do exist on rural schoolgrounds, they often lack running water and are too dirty to use. This forces girls to use open fields to relieve themselves, and most elect to not come to school during their period or to drop out entirely once they begin menstruating.
There has been progress, to be sure. Globally, the number of students out of secondary school is about the same for boys and girls, and the gender gap even in primary-aged children has reduced from 5 percent in 2000 to under 2 percent in 2015.
But the need for investing in female education remains. This is not just an ethically sound decision but an economically sustainable one: most girls who do start school go on to pursue studies at the secondary level; in fact, women boast higher returns to schooling than men in virtually all countries. And most telling? Education has accounted for half the increase in women’s labor income across the world.
3.2 FORTIFYING FARMERS: HOW AGRICULTURAL WORKERS BENEFIT
Studies show that traditional agricultural workers may benefit from education more than the general population, especially given the recent technological boom which has benefited workers who were already high-skilled, and which has increased the gap between socioeconomic classes worldwide. Education helps low-skilled workers traverse social classes by opening access to high-skill jobs. Simultaneously, it frees up job opportunities for the low-skill workers who replace them, allowing them to earn higher wages as a result of lower supply and consistent demand. The productivity and wages of individual farmers also increase: a given region of land may produce the same agricultural output year after year, but as the population of farmers decreases, individual farmers become more productive to maintain that total output.
India has a much larger traditional than “modern” sector, meaning that a substantial portion of the population are agricultural workers with low financial productivity. As of 2015, over 800 million people out of India’s population of 1.25 billion at the time (64 percent) lived in rural areas. Over half of those rural households (57.8 percent) were involved in farming – concerning when one considers that Indian farmers’ average annual income in 2015 was less than $120 per household.
Rural and tribal communities have also experienced a sharp uptick in urban migration, the process of rural farmers travelling to urban areas in agricultural off-seasons to maintain employment, usually through manual labor like construction work. Children’s education is often disrupted as a result, either because parents take them along to be enrolled in a city school or to work alongside the parents, or simply because the parents are no longer at home to ensure the children’s school attendance. Even if families do not migrate, children are often asked to help their parents in the fields during peak agricultural seasons, obstructing the consistency of their studies.
Furthermore, rural areas tend to have minimal educational facilities with dubious infrastructure. These issues compound in the monsoon season, when heavy rains falling through school roofs necessitate that students be sent home, and floods prevent students and teachers from coming to school at all.
Finally, there is little oversight of rural schools. Teachers show up inconsistently and often lack the necessary subject knowledge or teaching skills. The government contributes to this laissez-faire approach by failing to implement proper monitoring and evaluation strategies. On the other hand, teachers do not always receive their salaries on time, and those that are trained often leave soon after for pursuit of better-paying jobs and work environments in cities, creating further instability in children’s learning environments.
3.3 WHERE ADIVASI STUDENTS STAND
Globally, India is home to the largest population of indigenous peoples aside from China. Yet the Indian tribal population is up to twenty years behind the general population in terms of development. One 2008 study from a researcher at the Delhi School of Economics found a tribal drop-out rate of 70.9 percent, and found that around 87 percent of the tribal population was engaged in the primary sector (jobs in the extraction or production of raw materials, including farming and forestry). And the National Sample Survey Office reported in 2010 that the literacy rate among scheduled tribes was just 63.1 percent (and around 25 percent for women of Scheduled Tribes in 2008), compared with the national literacy rate at 72.8 percent from 2011 census data.
Tribal students face additional challenges over and above those of rural children. One ubiquitous issue is language barriers, as teachers often do not know or teach in tribal languages. This prevents students from following the curriculum or sustaining interest in the subject matter. The paucity of class material on tribal culture or folklore further contributes to lack of interest. Finally, many teachers hold biases toward tribal students, presuming them to be inferior or unintelligent. These factors collectively contribute to high drop-out rates among tribal children.
EDUCATION AS A SHIELD
Thus far, we have examined the obstacles to and benefits of education for rural populations, agricultural laborers, women, and tribal communities in India, which are often overlapping labels for the same individuals. Let us now explore how education mitigates from many of the issues prevalent in these demographics, especially among tribes.
Adivasis have historically faced colonization and oppression from groups both within and external to India. As my host organization works primarily with the Bhil communities of the northwestern Tribal Belt, I will take two famous examples involving this population. Adivasi oppression by both the British and princely states was epitomized in the Mangarh Massacre of 1913, also known as the Adivasi Jallianwala. On November 17th of that year, Bhil community members gathered on Mangarh Hill (just 65 kilometers from my organization’s office) to protest the refusal of their labor rights charter by the British and the surrounding Rajput princely states. The British Army opened fire, killing around 1500 people.
Further, we may reflect on the Indian government’s development of the Sardar Sarovar Dam, beginning in 1979. The construction of this mega-dam has resulted in the displacement or relocation of 200,000 mostly tribal people to unfamiliar lands, without the necessary soil or space for continuing agriculture and maintaining their traditional ways of life. According to Land Conflict Watch, over 17,000 families were still awaiting rehabilitation as of 2016. And writer-activist Arundhati Roy estimates that as of 1999, around 50 million people, mostly tribal, have been displaced by the Indian government’s post-independence Development Projects since independence (40 million moved due to the construction of dams).
Due to this deeply turbulent history, Adivasi communities have become more vulnerable than other Indian demographics to an array of issues, ranging from disease to crime. Yet education has proven to be a direct buffer against nearly all of these issues, cementing the need for NGOs that wish to support Adivasis to place education at the center of their mission. Let’s take a closer look:
4.1 MENTAL & SOCIAL HEALTH
Studies have shown that by reducing class inequality, education can also manifest social cohesion and improve communities’ social, mental, and emotional health. As for labor rights, a subsection of social health, education and literacy protect workers from exploitation in the labor market. For example, literate employees have the ability to ensure more protective contracts for themselves. UNESCO found that in urban Él Salvador, only 7 percent of employees with less than primary education had a labor contract, whereas almost half of those with secondary education had signed one. Finally, by leveling the playing field, education gives people the confidence to adopt entrepreneurial attitudes and start their own businesses.
4.2 GENDER INEQUALITY & CRIMES AGAINST WOMEN
Education helps ensure women’s ability to demand their rights. A 2014 literacy programme in Uttarakhand increased the number of women who felt able to leave the house without permission (from 58 percent to 75 percent) and participate in village council meetings (from 19 percent to 41 percent). In Pakistan, 63 percent of women with lower secondary education believe they can have a say in the number of children they have, compared to only 30 percent of women with no education. And in Sierra Leone, an additional year of schooling reduced women’s tolerance of domestic violence from 36 percent to 26 percent. Additionally, education improves girls’ ability and confidence to make decisions about their and their families’ finances, health, and resources.
Unfortunately, tribal populations in India remain some of the most susceptible to gender-motivated crimes. Take the case of human trafficking: perpetrators in India intentionally target tribal populations, especially women, for their lack of financial stability, desire for social freedom, and lack of documentation or legal protections. According to Ruchira Gupta – anti-human trafficking activist, journalist, and founder of an NGO that works to stop sex trafficking – girls from scheduled tribes and castes make up the majority of India’s sex trafficking victims. Mirroring this, Jharkhand, a state with one of the highest tribal populations in India, is most targeted by human traffickers according to the NCRB and the 2017 Economic Survey of India.
Early marriage is another prominent challenge for uneducated women across the world. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has found that as of 2020, 51 percent of women with no education and 47 percent with only primary education had been married before they turned 18. Correspondingly, the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) found that girls out of school are 3.4 times more likely to be married underage or have their marriage already decided, than girls in school.
Within India, the median age of first marriage for women with 12 or more years of schooling, now aged 25-49, was 22.7 compared to 17.2 for women with no education. Data from NFHS-5 (2019-21), -4 (2015-16) and -3 (2005-6) shows that scheduled tribes (STs) and scheduled castes (SCs) have some of the lowest median ages of marriage across India, with 26 percent marrying below the legal age.
Let us take the example of Jharkhand again. In some pockets with high SC and ST populations, the number of girls married under the legal age of 18 is up to 60 percent. The ICRW found that in two districts of Jharkhand with substantial ST populations, 11 percent of girls ages 15-18 have already been married off, and another 12 percent in this age group already have their marriages fixed. Of those who are married across both districts, only 16 currently remain in school. Almost 60 percent of those who dropped out did so at least 1 year before getting married, demonstrating that the negative effects of marriage on girls’ education well precedes their actual marriage date.
But if girls were to receive even just one more year of education, they would be able to negotiate the age they get married by 3-4 years, as per the ICRW. Poonam Muttreja, the executive director of Population Foundation of India, goes one step further by arguing that education holds more sway than simply adding more legal protections, because education allows young women to actually understand their rights in terms of marriage.
Tribal women and teenage girls also tend to lack knowledge on sexual and reproductive health. For those with lower education levels, promoting education would help to bring down their higher rates of early pregnancy, childbirth complications, and risk of infant or maternal mortality.
Education goes beyond empowering women – it also preempts the perpetration of gender-based crimes. Globally, education accounts for approximately 80 percent of gender inequality reduction since 1991 and about 59 percent of gender inequality reduction in the average country across all demographics, according to the World Bank.
According to Equimundo, the non-profit organization that developed the seminal Gender-Equitable Men (GEM) assessment to evaluate perpetrator attitudes, higher GEM scores (which correspond to more gender-equitable beliefs) were positively related to education level. The researchers argued that this is likely because men with higher education levels are more likely to be exposed to teachers and peers with equitable beliefs. Moreover, education builds the critical thinking skills necessary to question and challenge preconceptions about gender like inequitable or traditional norms.
4.3 DISEASE & DISASTER
Sickness is another issue that disproportionately affects impoverished and tribal populations. For example, pneumonia is the biggest cause of death in early childhood (accounting for nearly a million children’s lives in 2015 as per WHO) and most frequently affects impoverished families. Maternal education can mitigate the risk of pneumonia by ensuring mothers are aware of risk factors like malnutrition, low birth weight, and the need for measles vaccination in the first 12 months of the baby’s life. Similarly, education has also been projected to minimize poverty-related diseases like malaria and AIDs.
Maternal education also helps women make healthy decisions for their families, especially given that in low-income countries, women usually bear the responsibility of cooking and maintaining families’ nutrition. For example, education helps women recognize the need for cleaner fuels and stoves over ones that burn solid fuel, which emit smoke and particles that damage the lungs in small and poorly ventilated homes. Within South Asia, a 2013 study found that Bangladeshi women with some education were 37 percent more likely to choose an improved cooking stove.
Substance abuse and psychological disorders are also more prevalent among tribal communities across the world, and India is no exception. For instance, there is a higher prevalence of psychiatric disorders among tribal school-going adolescents compared to national data. A major factor behind these phenomena are the generational effects of the trauma that comes with a history of oppression, both from a psychological and epigenetic standpoint.
I have published another blog specifically about alcoholism among Adivasi communities, in which one key finding is that education protects against alcoholism. I will leave that blog to speak for itself, but will just add a few notes: In a study of 5000 tribal people in Arunachal Pradesh, 5 percent used opium and 30 percent used alcohol. The prevalence of opium use was found to be negatively correlated with education levels. Similarly, a significant number of the Bonda tribe in Odisha are hazardous alcohol drinkers, but this trend is on the decline likely due to an increase in adult literacy and education and a corresponding rise in income.
Finally, UNESCO found that if universal secondary education was achieved by 2030 in alignment with SDG 4, starting in 2040 there would be 10-20,000 fewer disaster-related deaths per decade. Asia is pivotal to this global prediction, as it contains two of the most populous countries with lower to middle class economies, most of whom live in coastal areas where most disasters take place.
4.4 ACCESS TO RESOURCES
Another issue that disproportionately affects Adivasi populations is access to life-sustaining resources like drinking water. This is especially true in states like Rajasthan, where water is scarce and terrain can be mountainous. Across India, STs are more likely than SCs and Other Backward Castes (OBCs) to fetch water from an outside source than have in-house tap water connections. Data shows that households with no education spend much longer fetching water, indicating that they are forced to cross longer distances or more challenging terrain. Again, the gender aspect cannot be ignored: households with no education also had a higher probability of women and girls being the ones to spend time fetching water, leaving them with less time for rest or other pursuits. Here as before, we see the cyclical trap of poverty perpetuating the inability to pursue education, which in turn perpetuates poverty.
4.5 THE POSITIVE FEEDBACK LOOP OF EDUCATION
Education bolsters education. When teachers receive better education and professional training, they often become more attentive to students from marginalized backgrounds and help prevent stigmatization from those students’ peers. The teachers will also have the knowledge and skillsets needed to create more personalized and creative teaching methods for marginalized students as needed, which in turn will maximize their learning.
SOLUTIONS: ATTACKING ROOT CAUSES
The evidence has one clear conclusion: education is the linchpin in impoverished people’s fight to break the cycle of poverty. Nowhere is this more true than among tribal populations, who are more vulnerable to some of society’s most devastating issues. To this end, no Indian NGO can claim to want to improve tribal livelihoods without emphasizing the need for connectivity to education, both for children and adults. Since quantity of education has proven more effective than quality, it’s crucial for NGOs to do their best to ensure tribal communities’ access to schools from primary through post-secondary education – especially since education has proven to be more effective than farming practices or material resources for improving tribal livelihoods.
From the above, we’ve also seen that adults receive higher returns per years of schooling than children. Unfortunately, the chances of an individual being out of school increase substantially by age group: globally, 9 percent of children are out of primary school globally compared to 16 percent being out of lower secondary school and 37 percent out of upper secondary. This means that NGOs must particularly support adults in completing their education. Within this population, women must be given special focus, as the above data demonstrates how women’s education is key to protecting women’s rights and boosting economies.
Finally, studies show that access to education also helps to curb tribal families’ urban migration. NGOs that aim to end urban migration within their geographical areas must center education as a focal theme of their work, with the mindset that education access and not financial constraints should be what bring tribal individuals to towns and cities.
It’s imperative to attack root causes, not symptoms – and based on the data presented here, almost every salient issue plaguing Adivasi communities can be traced back to lack of money and education. Since centers of education often lie beyond villages, we must encourage tribal members – especially girls and women – to have the confidence to leave their village and complete their education. This will open up choice for tribal communities – the choice to explore a place, culture, way of thinking beyond their village, and perhaps even more important, the choice to stay or return. No matter what they choose, their added years of education will have allotted them higher levels of health, safety, and equality wherever they go.
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