Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is reported to be deeply perturbed about the poor standards of higher education in the country (IE, June 15). At the same time, the HRD ministry has compelled top colleges to enforce reservation for OBCs in faculty selections. Apparently, the government is chasing two objectives simultaneously — quality in education and social engineering in faculty selection.

The two objectives are in conflict. Consider a simple example. For a teacher’s post there are two applicants. One is an upper caste, with excellent credentials, thanks to inherited advantage. The other is a first generation learner, badly handicapped by backward caste antecedents. Consequently, for no fault of his, he is less scholarly and less able. It is not improbable that the backward caste candidate would have been more proficient if he had had the same family background as the upper caste competitor. Hence, his lack of skills is not his own fault but that of his environment. Therefore, there is a strong case to prefer him to the more advantaged upper caste candidate. At the same time, consider the future of the students. Who will give them a stronger academic foundation — the more able upper caste teacher or the handicapped backward caste one?

I raised this question to a group of college teachers who were attending a course in Delhi. Several of them were vociferous in demanding reservations in teaching posts and about the need to break upper caste dominance in the teaching profession. I then asked them to which school they will send their children — a government school where teachers are selected on caste basis or a private one where teachers are appointed on merit. My question was met with thundering silence.

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