A comparative study on enrolment of scheduled caste and scheduled tribe learners in bachelor of social work programme of IGNOU in Assam before and after implementation of IGNOU fee exemption scheme under SCSP/TSP Grant

Education is a very important determinant of overall development of a community or a society. It is the responsibility of a state in democratic country like India to provide equal opportunity of qualitative educational development to all sections of the society. Distance education is mainly focused on democratization of higher education by providing a platform to disadvantageous section of people due to some unavoidable circumstances. It facilitated them; get the hands on training through distance mode without hampering the daily social responsibilities and activities of learners. IGNOU BSW programme is one of the important professional based programme for learners dealing with professional training/degree in Social Work. India’s Northeast region is popularly celebrated for its cultural diversity with sizable number of Schedule Tribe (ST) community as inhabitant of this region. Social Work Education in the Northeast region of India began only in the year 1992. The present study is carried out on 620 learners of BSW programme enrolled at IGNOU RC, Guwahati in last ten years from 2010 to 2019 with an intention to assess the impact of IGNOU fee exemption scheme in admission of Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) learners in undergraduate programmes. This will enable us to know and assess the participation/ involvement of SC/ST learners in free admission scheme of IGNOU under SCSP/TSP Grant in Assam by examining their percent shares in annual admission. Apart from that we have also examined the overall general trends of admission on the basis of Area (Urban, Rural & Tribal), Gender, the age profile, and marital status of learners enrolled in this programme. This study is undertaken to determine and access the fulfilment of University’s motto “reaching the unreached” in weaker section and scheduled communities of our society.