Eklavya schools struggle to meet 5% PVTG sub-quota; dropouts on the rise for three years

Government data shows EMRS struggling to meet 5% PVTG quota, with rising dropouts; efforts being made to address issues.

About four years after the Centre introduced a sub-quota of 5% for the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG) in admissions to Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS) for tribal students across the country, government data show that schools are struggling to meet this quota with just 3.4% of all EMRS students belonging to PVTG communities even as the number of PVTG students dropping out of EMRS has been rising for the last three years consecutively. 

According to data obtained by The Hindu through the Right to Information Act, of the 1,30,101 students enrolled into all 407 functional EMRSs as of October this year, 4,480 belong to PVTG communities, which amounts to about 3.4% of the total student population at these schools.  

The data showed that States that had the most students — Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Gujarat — were struggling to meet the 5% PVTG student quota. In Madhya Pradesh, PVTG students account for 3.8% of the total students, in Chhattisgarh they comprise 2.74% of the student population, whereas in Gujarat, just 21 students out of the total 10,688 students belong to PVTG communities.  

This comes even as government data tabled in the Lok Sabha on Thursday showed that more and more PVTG students had been dropping out of EMRSs for the last three years. Tabling this data in response to a question from DMK MP Kanimozhi, the Tribal Affairs Ministry said that in 2021-22, 10 PVTG students had dropped out. This had increased to 14 in 2022-23, and to 18 in the following academic year.  

“Infrastructure gaps, teacher shortage, pressure to work for earning, quality of education, are some of the reasons for drop out,” the reply tabled by Union Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Durgadas Uikey said.  

The provision to introduce a 5% sub-quota for PVTG students in admissions to EMRSs was introduced after the administration of the schools was centralised by setting up the National Education Society for Tribal Students in 2019. The first set of guidelines issued by NESTS in 2020 accommodated this in the reservation matrix.  

While most States are struggling to meet the 5% PVTG quota, the data obtained by The Hindu showed that some States had managed to surpass the 5% mandate. In Tamil Nadu’s EMRSs, PVTGs comprise 8.36% of total students; in Jharkhand, this percentage is at 7.48%; and in Andhra Pradesh, it is 12.91%.