Opinion Reboot affirmative action
While measuring deficits,consider candidates eligibility for higher education
-
Share -
-
-
Affirmative action in the form of reservation,to address issues of inclusion and equity in higher education,has been in place in India for a long time. Evidence suggests that these policies have not been an unqualified success. Whats more,policies that were to be temporary have not only persisted but expanded. Meanwhile,the social conditions that called for affirmative action have not been stable either. The implementation of reservation policies has faced a variety of challenges,from identifying beneficiary groups to the legal interpretation of constitutional provisions.
One of the premises for the reservation policies is that participation in higher education by marginalised groups is very low. Recent studies have highlighted that the measure of participation in higher education is critical to the analysis of differentials across social groups. If the share of a particular socio-religious category (SRC) in the total population is higher than its share studying at the graduation level,the group suffers from a deficit in participation.
While measuring deficits,it is useful to consider the candidates eligibility for higher education. Those eligible for undergraduate courses need to have completed their higher secondary education. Instead of focusing on the entire population in the relevant age group,measures of participation should focus on the segment that has completed higher secondary education. This explicitly brings the links between secondary and tertiary education into the analysis.
Among the groups eligible for reservation,only Hindu OBC share in the studying population (33.8 per cent) is higher than their quota (27 per cent for all OBCs). Interestingly,the deficits for the marginalised groups and differences between SRCs decline dramatically when one compares the share in the population currently studying at the graduation level with the share in the population that is eligible to go to college. Apart from socio-religious affiliations,participation in higher education can be affected by factors like the households economic status,gender,region and parental education. Deficits for underprivileged groups are significantly lower among the eligible population,even after we account for a variety of other factors. Thus,once persons from underprivileged groups finish school,their chances of going to college are quite high. Chances of higher education also increase significantly with parental education and are the highest for those whose parents have studied at the graduation level.
Should reservation be linked to the deficits of respective groups? Deficits change over time but it is not possible to revise reservation policies frequently. Besides,since many factors,other than socio-religious affiliation,have a significant influence,focusing exclusively on such affiliation for affirmative action seems inappropriate. The effects of economic background as well as location highlight the role of supply-side factors. In fact,once other factors are accounted for,parental education,rather than socio-religious identity,seems to determine participation in higher education. Within SRCs,the deficits seem to be higher for Muslims than for Hindu OBCs,where these are at best marginal.
Given the high information requirements for caste- or even income-based reservation,and other factors that make implementing the current reservation policies difficult,parental education can potentially be a good criterion for affirmative action as it is easy to measure and does not have any problems associated with designation and re-designation (as is the case with caste categories). Such a criterion makes sense given the changing role of caste in social stratification,and is self-limiting. Children with illiterate parents can potentially form the most backward category followed by those having parents with secondary or less education. Children with parents having graduate education may be outside the purview of affirmative action. If Aadhaar becomes a reality and everybody has a unique identity with requisite information,implementing a programme on this basis may not suffer from information failures.
But more than reservation,it may be appropriate for policy to focus on ensuring eligibility for higher education. Deficits for the under-privileged were found to be significantly lower among the eligible population,even after we control for a variety of other factors. Higher education policy needs to focus on ensuring that the threshold is crossed. Arguably,reservation in higher education is an incentive to cross the threshold. One can also argue that job reservation can enhance the incentives to participate in higher education. Empirical work supports the argument that the efficacy of reservation policies depends on other complementary instruments that ensure better academic preparation and financial support. There is evidence to suggest that the supply side factors positively affect the participation of various groups in higher education presumably through the process of enhancing eligibility. Given the shrinking of the government sector in higher education,non-quota based policy instruments to incentivise diversity of student population on private campuses seems desirable.
The writer is a professor at IIM,Ahmedabad
express@expressindia.com
-
Share
-
-
-
Share
