According to the 1961 census, the all India literacy rates of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribeswere21.38 and 16.35 per cent respectively, as against 41.20 percent of the non-Scheduled Caste and non-Scheduled Tribe population sectors. The progress of the education of women of these communities is poor.
The literacy rates of women of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes were 10.93 and 8.04 per cent as against 29.43 per cent of other population sectors. The incidence of higher education in these communities is dismally low.
The imbalance in educational development between different population sectors lead to many social and economic ills, in addition to the loss of human resource development in the country in general, and the non-harmonious development of the individual learner’s personality.