EDUCATIONAL INCLUSION THROUGH OPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNING: A STUDY OF INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES IN TRIPURA

Open and Distance Learning (ODL) has emerged as a transformative modality for extending higher education to marginalised and geographically isolated communities. In the northeastern Indian state of Tripura, indigenous communities comprising nineteen Scheduled Tribe groups have historically faced structural barriers to formal education rooted in socio-economic deprivation, geographic inaccessibility, and linguistic disadvantage. This qualitative study investigates the role of ODL in promoting educational inclusion among these communities, with particular focus on indigenous students pursuing their degrees through various Open and Distance Learning modes of education in West Tripura District. Drawing on in-depth interviews with indigenous students enrolled in ODL programmes, the study explores their motivational trajectories, lived experiences, institutional support structures, and the challenges they negotiate as learners in a non-traditional academic environment. The findings reveal that ODL meaningfully expands educational access by overcoming spatial and temporal constraints, yet several structural impediments including digital poverty, inadequate study centre infrastructure, limited language support, and economic precarity, continue to undermine the full realisation of inclusive education. The study contributes to the growing body of scholarship on ODL, equity, and Indigeneity in the Global South, and offers evidence-based policy recommendations to strengthen ODL as an instrument of social justice in tribal-majority regions. Keywords: Open and Distance Learning, Indigenous Communities, Educational Inclusion, Tripura, Higher Education, Scheduled Tribes, Social Equity, West Tripura