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| Caste-based reservation | | Quality of education to suffer | |
The Human Resource Development Ministry at the Centre has sent 5000 circulars to universities and colleges giving “guidelines for implementation”. Although euphemistically described as guidelines, these circulars are instructions asking all colleges to institute caste-based reservation in faculty selections and promotions, right up to the level of professors.
In a parallel move, the Prime Minister has voiced concern on the absence of Muslims in high-level jobs and has expressed a desire to get more Muslims into all kinds of services, which will naturally include professorial positions.
Before we consider the implications of these moves, we should have a look at the statistics that form their basis. “Missing persons” has become a popular and evocative expression to describe the shortfall in the representation of various groups like women, backward castes and minorities at higher levels of economic activity. The statistics are right; it is a fact that all these groups are under-represented.
The problem with statistics is that they can mislead. For example, compared to their population, Muslims are under-represented in the judiciary. On the other hand, if we were to measure the share of Muslim judges from among the number of Muslims in the legal profession, this shocking disparity will vanish. Measured in that manner, the fact of missing Muslims will be seen less as a question of prejudice and more the result of non-availability of enough lawyers in the Muslim community. The same result will emerge when we consider the representation of the backward castes and women too.
For instance, it is a universal fact that girls outperform boys at the school level. However, at the university level, a sudden reversal takes place: boys outnumber girls in the more challenging and lucrative professional courses like engineering. Even then, the statistics are misleading. It is a fact that the IITs have few girls in their B. Tech. classes. On the other hand, few girls attempt the IIT entrance examination. Once again, when the actual number of contestants is taken into account and not the total population, the apparent disparity vanishes.
In this situation, we have two choices: One, treat the final share as sacred whatever be the number of eligible contestants; two, ensure that from among the eligible contestants every group has a balanced share. For our policy makers and for the media too, the excitement is about the absolute shortfall, not the relative shortfall.
Currently, reservation is the sole remedy accepted by both the political class and an influential body of intellectuals. For the political class, ends justify the means: reservation offers them the means to capture the support of opinion makers among backward communities.
For the activists, means justify the ends. For that reason, they claim to occupy the high moral ground. For them, reservation is the moral imperative. They do not mind the fact that reservation has not helped a large majority of the dispossessed. They do not care for the fact it has cost them much goodwill. They are not concerned either about the hardship suffered by the genuinely poor but deserving upper caste youth. For activists, the process of reservation remains sacred even though the results are flawed.
Emboldened by this situation, for the first time in India’s history, the HRD Ministry has imposed reservation at all levels in faculty positions. That will stuff colleges with less than able teachers. In doing so, the ministry overlooks the fact more than anybody else, under-privileged students need able teachers. This policy of reserving teaching positions on the basis of caste, and at the expense of ability, is like giving junk food to malnourished children and depriving them of healthy diet.
Already, in elementary schools, teachers are selected on the basis of reservation. One of the most influential personages in the country told me that many of these teachers do not teach at all. Instead, they pay a pittance to a proxy to take their place. He was amused rather than alarmed about it. Nor was he concerned about the harm done to innocent children. He tamely accepted his inability to enforce discipline: He dare not impose discipline because all those teachers are political animals, not professional academics.
Thanks to their explosive growth, most engineering colleges employ substandard teachers. The results are showing: employers are complaining that most engineering graduates are unemployable. The HRD Ministry’s directive will make the situation worse.
Thus, the decision of the ministry to impose caste-based reservations introduces double jeopardy. One, it denies students a minimum acceptable quality of education. Two, it makes the government too impotent to enforce discipline. Unfortunately, the HRD Ministry has pre-empted the issue in such a manner that no one in the government will dare oppose it. Thus, the future of quality education is bleak.
If backward castes are under-represented in universities, the blame rests not with colleges and universities but with high dropout rates in schools. In turn, dropout rates are high only because most government schools are too politicised to function effectively. As poor children can afford government schools only, the poor are the sole sufferers of indiscipline among government school teachers.
The phenomenal growth of telecommunications has shown that too much control, and not too little of it, leads to poor governance. In the light of that proven experience, competition among schools and colleges is the best solution for ensuring quality education for all.
Student vouchers have been proposed as a means for introducing competition among educational institutions. In that system, the government does not offer grants to schools directly. It does so indirectly by giving students vouchers which they can use to pay for education in a school or college of their choice.
Once the voucher system comes into force, educational institutions will earn their income only by attracting students. Teachers will earn their salaries only when they perform well enough to attract students. Thus, vouchers ensure competition, and competition will ensure quality. In turn, quality education will make reservation unnecessary.
Though the voucher system will improve the teaching quality, politicians hesitate to accept it. They are not sure what will fetch more votes — pampering a few thousand teachers from backward groups or ensuring quality education for millions of students from the same groups. Currently, the former option is fashionable. We have to wait patiently for one of them to realise that the latter is a more reliable option.
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