The variance within scheduled castes in education

About 21% of Chandigarh’s overall population above the age of 20 years has a graduate degree. But in the same age group among scheduled castes (SCs) in Chandigarh, only about 6% are graduates. Drill further into the 21 groups that make up the SC graduate population of this union territory. In one-fourth of these groups, only 2% are graduates; in another one-fourth, 11% are graduates.

Contrary to the way they are usually referred to, SCs are hardly a homogenous grouping when it comes to levels of educational attainment. This is borne out by a state-level dataset released earlier this year by Census 2011 on the literacy and educational attainment of Indians from 600-odd SC groups.

While the data overwhelmingly shows how, on average, SCs trail non-SC population at every level of education, there are nuances. For instance, the variance among SC groups within a state. There are states where such variances are small and some where they are large.

Use the interactive below to explore these nuances at the state level. The data can be sliced in various ways: by educational level, age, gender and location.

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