On Reservations in Higher Education | Arup Maharatna

Abstract

The commentary dissects rationale and ramifications of a policy of reservation especially when it is coupled with relaxation in the tests of intellectual abilities and academic volition at the time of admission to higher educational institutions.

There was a time – albeit not very long ago – when the term, higher education, (HE), meant chiefly taught educational programmes at higher (post-secondary) levels in diverse disciplines as well as academic research conducted in higher educational institutions such as colleges and universities funded, in large part, by the state for promotion and cultivation of such precious public goods as scientific (original) inventions, new knowledge, new theoretical/analytical discovery and new insights into diverse dimensions and aspects of human history, society, arts and culture. Needless to say, unlike primary or secondary schools which impart universal basic education, the HE-arena was historically supposed be thronged by those, who happen to have not only proven intellectual superiority and potentiality but also with an innate thirst for deeper knowledge/truth and its sustained scholarly pursuits. This is how HE has been, for long, perhaps until 1970s, a distinguished, sustainable and steady source of precious fuel for overall societal texture, progression and flourish – scientifically, technologically, socially, politically and culturally. As HE institutions have universally been seats of intensive cultivation and promotion of intellectual creativity, originality, inventions and newer intellectual heights achieved mostly as public goods by talented and gifted cohorts and minds, the entire HE sector has perennially been kept exclusive to academically passionate and intellectually superior persons and been treated in high societal esteem throughout human history. That is also why we have prestigious Nobel prizes only for intellectual and cognitive excellence but not for extraordinary/outstanding persons say in the spheres of business, accumulation of wealth, managerial acumen in running gigantic corporate enterprises and organizations, or even most talented persons in performing arts.

Although the story of the traditional HE system thus far sounds jolly good, its landscape has had a deep-seated blemish, namely its longstanding asymmetry in favour of persons who come of elite and socio-economically well-off sections of population and society, with just very exceptional few from the lower rungs of society. This reflects, of course, an unenviable embodiment of traditional HE with social injustice and inequity of which genesis, however, is historically rooted in economic and political systems systematically designed as a breeding-ground of inequality in the distribution of income, wealth, social status. Lately – especially over post-WWII decades - many concerted criticisms and analyses of this historical inequity in traditional HE system have been jointly voiced from the standpoint of social equity/inequity in HE by socio-political activists, academic scholars, media with lavish support of big business houses, who have always eyed on the moments of unleashing HE across wider population leading to mammoth opportunities for marketing and profit. Thus, these campaigns for robbing off historic exclusivity of HE have often been rather emotive and somewhat rights-based not merely in demanding an equality in participation/opportunities for HE among all classes and castes but also in its bid to settle a historical score of past injustice (especially in terms of meagre proportionate participation of the underprivileged in traditional HE) by demanding compensatory concessions presently in various guises for candidates from historically underprivileged sections of society.

Thus, these post-WWII critiques of traditional HE system – both fortified and fuelled by ‘post-modernist’ ideas, discourses, and rights-based activistic campaigns - often appear oblivious to an important historic fact, namely that it is only the intellectually able and innately academic-minded candidates, not other members even from the elite and wealthy families, used to get admission to traditional institutions of higher learning and research. This reflects squarely a top priority that used to be traditionally and judiciously accorded to the maintenance of academic/intellectual excellence and standard of HE. However, this should by no means be construed as an alibi in defence of intolerably stark social inequity manifest in a disproportionately meagre participation of candidates from socio-economically weaker sections of whom many – not all – are naturally born with no less intellectual potentialities and innately academic inclinations than their counterparts from well-to-do households. But many of the former group – even though quite able in terms of intellectual potentialities and academic volition – still remain deprived of HE just because their families cannot afford to spare even a single adult family member – however academically brilliant and motivated – for higher learning in college/university for even a single year not working or not contributing to the family pool of incomes for its survival.

However, this perennial fact of social inequity in HE especially from the standpoint of mostly-unspoken deprivation of HE among naturally born meritorious or intellectually gifted members in poor or socially underprivileged households is not something which has been entirely ignored in history by the state or the king. There has historically been a provision of scholarships and benevolent support from state or private sources of philanthropy for HE of such potentially outstanding candidates of underprivileged sections, Dr B. R Ambedkar, one of the finest intellectual stalwarts of India of the preceding century with distinguished education and exposure abroad being perhaps one of its glaring illustrations. At the same time, however, such provision of scholarship for the meritorious from underprivileged families cannot hide the basic historic fact that manyfold higher number (in proportionate terms) of intellectually gifted and innately academic-minded youth from socio-economically underprivileged households than their counterparts of well-to-do households remain involuntarily deprived of HE opportunities both because of extreme paucity of such scholarships as well as inordinately high opportunity cost of HE for them from the households steeped in abject poverty or social subjugation.

While, historically, HE has remained socially inequitable in the enduring – albeit not inevitable - absence of sufficient financial support for intellectually gifted members of underprivileged classes, this cannot distract us from what is already hinted at above, namely an element of intrinsic inequality being embedded in the whole notion of HE. That is, human beings of high intellectual calibre, ability and academic inclination are born naturally to be fewer in number and are also distributed randomly across an entire cohort of a population, irrespective of class, caste and creed. This perfectly echoes what the illustrious modern Bengali poet of the last century, namely Jibanananda Das, writes in his proverbial statement: ‘All are not poets, but a few are poets’ [present author’s own translation of the Bengali sentence]. Accordingly, it would not be unreasonable to presume that there must have been many Nobel-prize winners over the entire preceding century who came of very underprivileged socio-economic background. This is, of course, not to deny that at any given point of time a society would have had many more intellectual stalwarts originating in weaker socioeconomic background if provisions of scholarships and/or financial assistance for this group would have been larger both in terms of amount and number than have been the case historically and globally.

Thus, a common bid across the globe (except a few countries like India) to address the necessity of taking intellectually gifted candidates of underprivileged families on board at the institutions of HE has never been a policy of reserving a fixed proportion of seats in colleges or universities for candidates from historically deprived classes or castes, not to mention about additional relaxations in minimum stipulated intellectual and volitional aptitudes/abilities in filling up seats statutorily reserved for members of the historically underprivileged castes or classes at the time of admission. Most of the advanced countries have firmly held a longstanding pragmatic conviction that academic standard and excellence in HE, unlike in universal school education, is too precious to be compromised under any circumstances or pretexts – let alone in the name or cause of social equity or justice generally in terms of levels of participation/access to HE across social classes or castes, irrespective of intellectual abilities and degree of academic volitions.

However, of late – especially after WWII – in the wake of neoliberal projects of massification, marketization and privatization of HE, the western world has embraced affirmative action to widen participation in [read market demand for] HE of youth from all sections allegedly by invoking avowed causes of social justice and human rights. While the intellectually weak or academically uninclined of wealthy households begin to get admitted with sumptuous capitation fees, their counterparts from underprivileged sections who cannot afford paying a hefty capitation fee get admitted via arguably a ‘backdoor’ of a popularly perceived sacrosanct notion of ‘plurality’ of pupils per se within classrooms (in terms of racial, cultural, ethnicity traits) exerting an independent influence towards achieving supposedly greater efficacy/excellence of HE being imparted. Apart from the fact that this plurality-argument in defence of academic relaxations, if necessary, in stipulated minimum standard/eligibility in admission process has been frowned upon in apex court judgements in western nations, the recent relevant research appears distinctly uncertain, dodgy and unclear over the extent of realization or realizability of purported effects of increased diversity per se via affirmative action on the academic performance of the students from disadvantaged groups or the achievement of the goal of social integration and equity in HE campuses. Indeed, there exists a lingering concern about affirmative action’s plausible unwelcome effects towards lowering the overall academic standard of HE. For example, a special adviser to the Education Secretary in UK wrote in 2013: “Although they would not put it like this, most prominent people in the education world tacitly accept that failing to develop the talents of the most able is a price worth paying to be able to pose as defenders of ‘equality”.

In this broad global scenario of affirmative action in HE, Indian line of thinking seems somewhat extreme and unique in its sustained advocacy of a policy of a statutory proportion of ‘reservation’/’quota’ of seats earmarked for students from officially recognised underprivileged social classes. Even this act of reserving seats for admission from historically discriminated castes or classes in institutions of HE is often coupled with relaxations in minimum academic standard/eligibility for the students from officially/constitutionally disadvantaged sections/castes (especially when statutorily reserved seats cannot be filled up by adhering to common minimum scores in the tests for admission). This combination of reservation of seats along with relaxations, if necessary, in minimum academic ability and standard in admission to HE institutions of candidates from socially deprived or historically discriminated sections of society has often been advocated by some scholars, academicians, and social and political activists by invoking a notion of social justice of a special genre namely which calls for a current compensatory academic concession as a form of condonation of the past historical social discrimination which is reasonably posited as the root of currently weak academic standard of many of the prospective students born to the historically discriminated households.

All this is of course heavily instrumental to massive expansion of enrolment from historically underrepresented social categories, together with increased diversity both of courses and curricula and of the composition of students. At the societal level the net result very often turns to be like one of a zero-sum game. The balance of evidence on the effects of reservation on quantum and standard of learning in HE overall remains at best uncertain, if not dodgy or even negative. For example, there is mounting evidence suggesting that the academically weak students admitted via ‘quota’ often end up dropping out or stagnating for years. Nor is the case any better with the rest of students who learn virtually nothing extra or additional, which could be attributable to the presence of the intellectually weak or academically uninterested group contributing to what is currently a buzzword in HE parlance, namely diversity in the campus per se. On the contrary, the admission of academically weak pupils via both reservation and relaxation of eligibility criteria for admission often appears to possess a perceptible potential of diluting overall academic standard of curriculum/content of education which in turn frustrates the core philosophy of HE itself. This is because of the evidently very limited success or perhaps even a failure of the commonly perceived ‘catching-up’ efforts or effects to be produced through purported arousal of a sense of competitiveness on the intellectually weak students admitted via reservation/quota for students of officially recognised disadvantaged category of households. Therefore, this typically or uniquely Indian policy of ‘reservation’ or quota embedded in the process of admission to HE institutions, which, especially when coupled with academic relaxation or concession for academically weaker students of the earmarked reserved categories, effectually grafts a group with lower academic merit/motivation onto a meritorious majority (which comprises of students from all socio-economic categories), often proves to be, on a net basis, counter-productive or a zero-sum outcome at the societal level. This is because of two intertwined reasons. HE – in contrast to elementary/higher secondary education - ideally is not meant to be a vehicle for achieving the broader goal of social justice per se, since social injustice stems from a complex interplay of many societal forces emanating from political economy, history, culture, politics and religion. Secondly, any attempt at grafting a small group of low intellectual calibre via reservation policy, coupled with academic relaxations at the time of admission, and thereby exposing them to a uniform uncompromised/undiluted curriculum and academic standard, has often been a major cause of tremendous tension and stress among students of weaker merit manifesting itself in diverse forms including drop-out, stagnation, depression, pathological mood for grievances, and related mental torments culminating, sometimes, into incidences of suicides or even strained inter-personal conflicts in campuses.

The universal right to school education or a universal adult franchise in elections in a democracy is the intellectual hue which is eminently inapplicable in case of HE for the simple reason that HE calls for superior intellectual abilities and passionate academic motivations – some distinct inherently cognitive resources - which cannot be manufactured or injected at will, and they are naturally scarce and randomly distributed across entire humanity. Let this clear and natural dictum, duly recognised and adhered to perennially and globally by the thinking and praxis in the sphere of HE, not be allowed to be muddled by letting political interests or emotions or sentiments, unreason or even ‘animal spirits’, to interfere into socially sacrosanct domain of higher learning and research. Its corollary, of course, is a policy of manifold expansion and liberality in the provision of scholarships and other financial support to the meticulously identified cohort of genuinely meritorious candidates with an innate academic affinity/inclination naturally born to parents of socio-economically underprivileged and historically deprived sections, who of course deserve real substantive socio-economic equity in its own right via deeply systemic transformation of entire society, politics, political economy, culture and polity.

(Author: Arup Maharatna is an independent scholar and (Retired) Rajiv Gandhi Chair Professor in Contemporary Studies, Central University of Allahabad, India)