This article deals with issues relating to education of Chuktia Bhunjia tribe of Orissa, highlighting the major factors determining girls’ education in this society. While looking at the low literacy of the girl child, factors like material culture, life cycle rituals and customary cultural norms are found largely responsible for high drop out from school. However, poverty, school timings and need of girl children in household chores are other causes of this. However, few girls have dared to cross the customary laws to carve out a space for themselves, even as the fear of social ostracism forces many parents to stop sending their girls child to schools. Thus, it is pertinent here to find out ‘alternatives’ so as to encourage girls’ education without dismantling their social structure as well as traditional cultural practices. Further, there is a need to redraft, fine tune them with cultural practices and social norms, as the existing policies fail to facilitate equal rights to everybody as enshrined in the Constitution of India.
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