Ashramshalas are a major tool of the government to address the educational concern of the tribal students. They are educational entities which are exclusively for the education of the tribal children and are located in tribal-density populations. They intend to cater to the special cultural and educational needs of the tribes. The deficiencies in tribal education, in the form of ashramshala’s, are due to the mainstream society following a school-education model that caters only to the urban mainstream culture, not matching the xenocentric tribal culture. The government and private aided patronage school systems with their infrastructure and academics militate and alienate the tribal children from their own culture, occupational patterns, language and identity. Ashram schools’ overall academic and administrative quality; Access and Participation; Enrollment; Retention; Language of Instruction; Curriculum Content; Teachers and Pedagogy; Community Participation and Ownership are some of the important issues that need to be addressed for improvement in tribal children’s education. A comparative study of the academic performance of tenth standard students in government and private aided schools reveals that a lot needs to be done by the government, mainstream society and parents to raise the standards of tribal education overall.