Educational achievement and social mobility, a comparative analysis of different social group in India

Social mobility is the movement of individuals or groups in social position over time. In India, social hierarchy has been traditionally organized around caste. Upliftment of economic and social position of backward caste people is an important challenge for the country like India, committed to broaden the base of development. Education is considered as an important driving force for social mobility. But if accessibility to better education itself remains limited to only to the few affluents, it reinforces the social hierarchy again.
Evidences from IHDS 2005-06 shows that, there are only 4.1 percent of people are graduate in India. A great inequality exist between caste group in educational achievement, as among ST just 1.5 percent, among SC just 1.8 percent and among high caste 9.4 percent of people are graduate. Around 35 percent of graduate is engaged in salaried employment which gives higher return compared to the other source of income. Proportion of graduate has increased in younger age group, particularly among disadvantaged communities, which shows that accessibility to education has widened. But the probability of getting a salaried job has decreased for the graduates of younger age group and it decreasing the return of educational betterment particularly for disadvantaged communities.