For verification of this paper, please visit on http://www.socialresearchfoundation.com/remarking.php#8

Ibanga (2016) sees education as the process of constant reconstruction of experience, rather than transmission of past values, in order to make it more meaningful and capable of solving present problems. Education is indeed the key factor to overcome all barriers and to achieve a sustainable development. Education is an indispensable tool necessary for the growth and development of an individual from all spheres and this further contributes towards the large scale development of the society. Each person being the building block of the society, need to be provided, with a proper institutionalized and suitable education system, to not only mould him/her but, also to help others to do. Emphasizing the importance of education, the Kothari Commission report on number of persons coming out of our schools and colleges will depend on our success in the great enterprise of natural reconstruction whose principle objective is to raise the standard of living of our people. Education must be spread equally to all without any discrimination on the ground of caste, creed, colour etc. Unequal education can lead to have a negative impact on the economic efficiency and social consistency (Ozturk, 2001). One of the primary goals of the schooling system must be to ensure that children are enrolled in and are attending school. Through initiatives such as the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (now the Samagra Shiksha) and the Right to Education Act, India has made remarkable strides in recent years in attaining near-universal enrolment in elementary education. To study and understand the educational status of any region, one important indicator is its students’ enrolment. Enrolment refers to the number of persons enrolled in a school or any institution for completion of a course. In the present study the authors have tried to bring out the status of the enrolment of students at secondary and senior secondary levels in Tawang district of Arunachal Pradesh. A Brief Profile of Tawang District There are 25 districts in Arunachal Pradesh and Tawang district is one of the districts of the state covering an area of approximately 2172 sq.kms. Tawang became a full fledged district in the year 1984. The district is situated in the western part of Arunachal Pradesh. It shares an international border with China in the north and Bhutan to the south-west and Sela ranges separated from West Kameng district in the east. The total population of the district is 49,977, sex-ratio 714 and the density of the population is 23 persons per sq kms (as per 2011 census). The district is predominately inhabited by tribal people of the Indo- Mongoloid race. The major tribe residing here are the Monpa. They have distinct culture, customs, faith, dress and dialect of their own. Majority of the people are living in the rural areas in the mountainous and hilly parts of the district. Society is patriarchal in nature. Before 1950, there was virtually no school and not even a single person had been to modern school. Only monks, nuns and few laity had the privilege of learning Buddhist scriptures in monasteries and nunneries respectively. It was only in the dawn of 1950s, the government opened schools in this area. To increase enrollment of the children of this area, many incentives were given. As per 2011 census, the literacy rate of Tawang district is only 59 percent, which is much lower than the average literacy rate of Arunachal Pradesh 65.38 and the national level which is of 74.04. Inspite of being one of the most advanced tribe of Arunachal Pradesh, the Monpa, unfortunately, are backward educationally ( Tsewang Norbu, 2008). This district is one among, the other districts of Arunachal Pradesh that is deprived, due to the situational and geographical constraint they are displaced from their main land counterparts having access to early and advanced education. The deprivation of education is also because of their poverty and engagement in hard labour from a very early age which is indispensable for the household chores as well as production activities, like agricultural and animal husbandry, as these are the main subsistence of their livelihood. Though various provisions and facilities have been initiated for education for the tribal students, yet they are not benefiting the opportunities at large and the enrollment of the tribal student is quite low. With the modern development of science and technology, the world is moving forward. So, it very important, that for a country to develop itself in full, it needs to take along all the section of its people towards the development and for that education is the only weapon.

1. Babudhan, (2005), in his study on Investigation into the problems of Kok Borok speaking tribal students studying in the secondary schools in Tripura found the percentage of enrollment of tribal children of the age group 6-14 years is 70.93% and 29.07% children have not enrolled themselves in schools. The rate of enrollment of boys was slightly better compared to the enrollment of girls. The study further found that the percentage 70.93 enrollment of tribal children indicated a significant change about the attitude of tribal people towards education. 2. Rupavat, (2011) Conducted a case study in the southern part of Nalgonda District, Andhra Pradesh, now in Telangana state, the 29th state of India, a tribal hamlet to provide insights and understanding of illiteracy educational policies in India, and to provide a perspective in the education system of India in general and Tribal in particular. The major finding were: (1) Most of the Tribal children didn’t even complete their primary education, (2) The student attendance level was defective, (3) Language was a problem, (4)There was indifferent attitude of the parents towards education of boys and girls, (5) Primary schools may play a crucial role in introducing change, (6) The major reasons for low involvement of the Tribal children in school were that majority of the children were expected to or even forced to work in fields or home. Socio-economic precariousness, alcohol consumption, etc. The study suggested education must, be given more attention from below to drive away the darkness of illiteracy from the society as a whole and from tribal society in particular. 3. Erigala, (2013) observed in his study that the school education is one of the most important aspects of a society. Children are the future of any society they need to be educated properly in order to become productive and healthy members of the society. Therefore they need to be enrolled in schools where they can be educated properly about the various skills and values necessary for life. The study further pointed out that the governmental and the non-governmental agencies have taken large number of initiatives in the form of policies, laws, educational infrastructures, facilities, incentives like mid-day meal, free uniforms ant textbooks, scholarships, training of teachers, etc. for the purpose of imparting education to the tribal section. 4. Yama, (2021) in her study on Study of Enrollment Pattern of Girls in Secondary and Higher Secondary level in Arunachal Pradesh found that Secondary and Higher Secondary Education is a crucial level of education as it is the bridge between the Primary level and the Higher Education level. As per 2011 census, the total literacy rate of Arunachal Pradesh was 66.95%, of which, male literacy was 73.69% and the female literacy was 59.57%. Comparative to 2001 census, there is a huge growth in the female literacy rate which was 43.53%. The total enrolment of girls in secondary and higher secondary level in the government schools was only 22,475, in the year 2013-14, which rose to 34,706 and 35,134 in the year 2014-15 and 2015-16 respectively. The state saw a dip in the year 2016-17 with only 29,239 girls enrolling themselves for the secondary and higher secondary level, which was 5895 girls fewer than the previous academic year. In 2017-18, the total number of enrolment of girls was 32,858 which again went down to 28,684 in the year 2018-19. The study found that, out of the total number of girls who had taken admission at the secondary level, only 50% of them moved forward and got themselves admitted at the higher secondary level, be it science, arts or commerce stream.

The present study is based on secondary sources. The population of the study consisted of 11 secondary and 5 senior secondary schools. 40 percent each of secondary and senior secondary schools for secondary and senior secondary sections respectively were taken through simple random sampling technique and simple percentage was used for analysis of the data.

Simple random sampling technique was used in the study.

Secondary Section (Class – IX & X)		Senior Secondary Section (Class – XI & XII)*
Sl. No.	Name of the Sampled School	Sl. No.	Name of the Sampled School
1	Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV), Lumla	1	Govt. Higher Secondary School (GHSS), Tawang
2	Govt. Town Secondary School (GTSS), Tawang	2	Govt. Higher Secondary School (GHSS), Lumla
4	Govt. Secondary School (GSS), Lhou
5	Tawang Public School (TPS), Tawang

*Including both Humanities and Science stream

Simple percentage was used for the analysis of data

Findings:

Objective 1.To find out the enrolment pattern of students at secondary (Class – IX & X) and senior secondary (Class – XI & XII) school level in Tawang district for the last five academic sessions from 2017-18 to 2021-22

Table 1(a): Showing the Students’ Enrolment pattern in the Secondary (IX-X) of Tawang District for the Academic Sessions (2017-18 to 2021-22).

Sl. No.	Name of the School	No. of Students Enroled in Class – IX & X
		2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22
1	KGBV Lumla	39	42	56	58	52
2	GTSS Tawang	201	146	177	157	124
3	GSS Kitpi	58	70	74	70	46
4	GSS Lhou	49	30	30	28	20
5	TPS Tawang	56	61	61	55	57
Total		403	349	398	368	299

Source: Enrolment data collected from the Deputy Director of School Education (DDSE) Office, Tawang.

Figure 1(i): Total Enrolment of Students at Secondary Level in Tawang District.

 Table 1(a) and figure 1(i) shows the total enrolment of students in the secondary level for the last 5 academic sessions (2017-18 to 2021-22) of Tawang District, Arunachal Pradesh. During the session 2017-18, the total enrolment of students at secondary level was 403. From the above table, we can see a dip during 2018-19 with only 349 student enroled in the secondary level which is 54 students less than the preceding session. During the session 2019-20, an increase of 49 students was witnessed with a total enrolment of 398. But, during the sessions 2020-21 and 2021-22, the total number of enrolment went down again to 368 and 299 respectively.  

Table 1(b): Showing the Students’ Enrolment pattern at Senior Secondary (XI-XII) school level of Tawang District for the Academic Sessions (2017-18 to 2021-22).

Sl. No.	Name of the School	No. of Students Enroled in Class – XI & XII
		2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22
1	GHSS Tawang	427	298	229	371	502
2	GHSS Lumla	139	120	106	175	179
Total		566	418	335	546	681

Source: Enrolment data collected from the Deputy Director of School Education (DDSE) Office, Tawang.

Figure 2(i): Total Enrolment of Students at Senior Secondary Level in Tawang District.

Table 1(b) and figure 1(b) shows the total enrolment of students in the senior secondary level for the last 5 academic sessions (2017-18 to 2021-22) of Tawang District, Arunachal Pradesh. During the session 2017-18, the total enrolment of students at senior secondary level was 566. The enrolment of students saw a fall in the sessions 2018-19 and 2019-20 to 418 and 335 respectively. An increase of 211 students was observed during the session 2019-20 to 2020-21 and the total enrolment rose to 546. Further, the total enrolment increased to 681 in 2021-22.

Objective2. To compare the enrolment of boys and girls at secondary and senior secondary level.

Table 2(a): Showing enrolment of students by gender at secondary level.

Session	Secondary (Class IX & X)
	Total Enrolment	Girls		Boys
		No.	%	No.	%
2017-18	403	233	57.8	170	42.2
2018-19	349	209	59.9	140	40.1
2019-20	398	251	63.1	147	36.9
2020-21	368	239	64.9	129	35.1
2021-22	299	197	65.9	102	34.1
All Sessions	1817	1129	62.1	688	37.9

Figure 2(i): Percentage of students' enrolment at secondary level (Class – IX & X) by gender in Tawang district for the last 5 academic sessions.

Table 2(a) and figure 2(i) shows that the enrolment status of the girls, at the secondary level were higher than the boys during all the 5 academic sessions. From the above table and figure we can see that 62.1% of the enroled students at the secondary level were girls while only 37.9% of the enroled students were boys. This shows that the majority of the student enroled at the secondary level were girls.   

Table 2(b): Showing enrolment of students by gender at senior secondary level.

Session	Senior Secondary (Class XI & XII)
	Total Enrolment	Girls		Boys
		No.	%	No.	%
2017-18	566	363	64.1	203	35.9
2018-19	418	282	67.5	136	32.5
2019-20	335	228	68.1	107	31.9
2020-21	546	360	65.9	186	34.1
2021-22	681	425	62.4	256	37.6
All Sessions	2546	1658	65.1	888	34.9

Figure 2(ii): Percentage of students' enrolment at senior secondary level (Class – XI & XII) by gender in Tawang district for the last 5 academic sessions.

Table 2(b) and figure 2(ii) shows that the enrolment status of the girls, at the senior secondary level was higher than the boys during all the 5 academic sessions. From the above table and figure we can see that 65.1% of the enroled students at the senior secondary level were girls while only 34.9% of the enroled students were boys. This shows that the majority of the student enroled at the senior secondary level were also girls. 

1. Adejimi, S .A and Nzabalirwa, W (2021). Students’ enrolment trend in the school of Education, College of Education, University of Rwanda. International Journal of Educational Research. Vol-9, No1. 2. Arjun, J.V and Premkumar, A (2020). Tribal Education in North Eastern States of India. Research and Reflection on Education. Vol. 18 No.1. 3. Census of India 2011, Arunachal Pradesh, DISTRICT CENSUS HANDBOOK for Tawang. 4. Ibanga , F.D.A (2016) Julius Nyerer’s Philosophy of Education: Implication for Nigeria’s Educational System Reforms. Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies, 9(3): 101-125. 5. Norbu Tsewang (2008), The Monpas of Tawang, Directorate of Research, Department of Cultural Affairs, Arunachal Pradesh, Frontier Printers & Publishers, Itanagar. 6. National Education Policy 2020 MHRD, Govt. of India. 7. Mwirigi and Mutha, G (2015). Impact of Enrolment on the Quality of Learning in Primary Schools in Imenti Central District, Kenya. Journal of Education and Practice. Vol.6, No.27, 156-160. 8. Rupavath, R. (2011). Tribal Education: A Perspective from Below South Asia Research.www.sagepublications.comDOI:10.11771026272801663718.Vol.36(2):206-228. 9. Yama Tage (2021). Study of Enrolment Pattern of Girls in Secondary and Higher Secondary Level in Arunachal Pradesh, Pp-11-21, in Pradhan, S.K & Yama, T (Eds.), Education in Emerging Indian Society, Rudra Publishers, New Delhi.