Name - Shivani Jogi

Roll no. – AU1812018

Opinion Piece
Should reservation system in Indian education system be abolished,
amended or remain as it is?
This piece covers mainly prevailing Indian social, economic and political conditions
regarding reservation system in Indian education system. It also covers impact of reservation
system, its advantages and disadvantages and a final opinion about what changes should be
made in reservation system to give justice to all.
Reservation is a mechanism of protective discrimination, as a social policy of the state
enshrined in the Constitution to ensure the participation of traditionally neglected section of
the society involving fixation of the quota in the electoral, employment and educational
institutions.
To give effect to the policy, the parliament enacted Act 5 of 2007, which makes provision for
reservation of 15% seats for scheduled castes, 7.5% for scheduled tribes, and 27% for other
backward classes in central educational institutions. The essential strategy of reservation is to
off-set the inequality and remove the manifest imbalance, the victims of past ages fall a long
way behind and demand equality by special preferences and strategies. Thus, the main
ground on which reservation is sought to be justified in India is that the people belonging to
the class- SC/ST/OBC were historically mistreated and denied of respect and equal
opportunities. Hence, the objective is to bring a balance between backward classes and
general public by uplifting classes- SC/ST/OBC.
The reservation is not to be construed as a measure of 'charity' or giving 'doles'. "Reservations
are only meant to create a measure of confidence and dignity among those who didn't dare
dream of an alternative life." Of course, for realizing this objective, the state is dutybound to
make massive investments for providing quality education that would equip the beneficiary
of reservation with 'socially valuable skills', which would enable them to produce the same
results as are produced by the privileged.
Nowadays, education in India is getting expensive day by day. Quality education is one of the
important factor for improvement of the social position of unprivileged communities and with
such expensive education, minorities can only think of getting any quality education.
Reservation class students also get concessions in job and college applications with respect
to application fees and other fees. Thus, along with getting preference over other candidates,
these poor people also get concession for fees while applying. Reservation system provides
backward class people a respectable salary which helps them to come out of the vicious
cycle of poverty which ultimately results into reduction in the income gap between rich and
poor backward classes. Reservation gives these backward classes a chance at improving their
lives and status in society and getting meaningful employment.
But, the reality is that reservation of any kind hampers the quality of higher education.
Through reservation, we may simply create a token for the reserved category students to enter
institutes of higher learning and professional excellence. The reality is that the majority of
such students fail to cope up with the standard of education required at such level. This
becomes clear from the fact that in the last ten years or so, in the courses like IITs etc, more
than 90% SC/ST/OBC students are either dropped out or were declared failed in the first year
or in the second year. In many cases, they simply failed to acquire the benchmark required to
sit in the examination. As a result of this, the reserved seats in higher courses are lying
vacant. Had these seats been given to really meritorious eligible candidates, we would have
got bundles of expert professionals who could be the real treasure of our country. This also
clearly shows the violation of right to education of the students belonging to general category
who, in spite of their merit and eligibility, fail to get seats in the institutes of higher education
only because of the fact that they belong to general category. For students hailing from
general category, criteria of admissions is not just good merit but also reservation, which
makes it more difficult to get admissions into their dream colleges. Students hailing from
backward class is ensured of a seat while a more worthy student might not be able to get a
seat.
Another important reason as to why reservation hampers progress is that because of
reservation, the really meritorious students lose out in the rat race. This not only hampers
progress but it also becomes a great loss for the nation. In fact, really meritorious and talented
students are the assets of the nation who must be given all types of support to blossom fully
and serve the nation. But the reservation policy simply kicks 50% of the really meritorious
students belonging to general category out of the race. This fuels the problem of brain-drain
as the really meritorious students go abroad simply because of the lack of seats for their caste
or community in the institutes of higher learning. In fact, the reservation policy only seems
attractive to those who support it but it is of no use to millions of people who are living a very
pathetic life in India, irrespective of caste.
According to AISHE- All India Survey on Higher Education report 2016-17, total
3,45,84,781 students were enrolled in Indian higher education institutions last year, and out
of that, a total of 52.56% students were from reserved categories (SC, ST, OBC) and the
remaining 47.44% belonged to the General category. These statistics show how reservation
policy has infected students from general category and are unable to avail the opportunities
they should get. Moreover, according to the survey during last five years, General category
student enrolment decreased from 53.2% in 2011-12 to 47.4% in 2015-16 whereas SC,ST and
OBC student enrolment has increased. General category students’ enrolment in higher
education institutions is declining day by day, which can be a serious problem of unfulfilled
dreams of those students.
Moreover, the reservations are now politically biased. Reservation policy is now being
formulated and used as a tool by politicians to fill their vote banks. Politicians in a way
bribes socially backward people for quality education. Such people from backward class just
think of their welfare and end up giving votes to these greedy politicians. Moreover,
politicians use it as a tool to expand their control over regions. Forged documents and
spurious certificates falsely proving people to be hailing from backward class enables
underserving students to get admission in reputed institutions. Thus, the reservation policy
has a hidden agenda which the politicians are trying to take advantage of.
Now what happens if the reservation system remains as it is:
Key goal of Reservation was to aid progress of society by pulling up the weaker sections of
the society. But this seems to be a myth. One obvious drawback is that even after so many
years of its implementation, there is hardly any significant progress. This may be because
most of the really backward people are not included in the list of “backward classes” as
prepared by the competent authority and the fairly forward people hang on to the tag of
backward so as to avail various facilities. Such faulty procedure is an obstacle in the uniform
progress of the nation. So doing nothing is not an option.
What happens if the reservation system gets abolished:
If the reservation system gets abolished, seats for general category would double. There
would be more opportunity for merit rather than caste based. The output of nation’s top most
universities would improve. Moreover, reservation was meaningful at the commencement of
the Constitution as a temporary measure. At that time the state was required and expected to
promote with special care, the educational and economic interests of the weaker classes, and
in particular the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and other backward classes. This brave
step of abolishing reservation policy comes with drawbacks. ST/SC/OBC people will oppose
this step and would call for nationwide strikes and protests creating a lot of problems.
What happens if the reservation system gets amended:
Amendment of reservation can be done in following three ways:
1. Increasing the reservation for SC/ST/OBC, which is currently happening in this
country. This would give an increase to upper mentioned problems and disadvantages.
2. Decreasing the reservation for SC/ST/OBC. This would help the students hailing from
general category a bit. But, it would not be the same for weaker classes of the society.
The people claiming of being from backward classes who are actually economically
well off would take the advantage and people who are actually economically and
socially backward would be left behind.
3. Changing the criteria for reservation system. Reservation on the basis of caste is not
an appropriate criteria. By changing the criteria to economic status and geographical
location, real backward classes would be determined and appropriate steps can be
taken to uplift their standard of living. Even the students from general category would
not feel unjust.
Conclusion and suggestions:
There is no denying the fact that there exists weaker or backward classes in the society which
need special care and attention for their development. In fact, uniform development of society
is impossible without the development of backward classes. But reservation is not the only
way of developing and uplifting that way of life of backward classes and that also in the
higher level of education which aims at quality education. First of all, proper policy and
criteria should be laid down to determine the real backward classes of the society who need
special care and attention. Caste should not be considered as a suitable criteria for
determination of backwardness as it is against the constitution. Instead poverty, geographical
location, educational level and occupation may be considered as a suitable criteria. After
determining the actual backward class, percentage of seats for reservation could be set
accordingly. Thus, I believe in amendment of reservation system where criteria for
reservation should be changed.
In addition to this, what is needed is not reservation in higher education but accessible and
quality primary and secondary education so that the students hailing from backward classes
can also successfully compete with other students and thereby further increase their
intellectual capacity. If quality primary and secondary education would be provided to all,
then there would be no need for reservation. If question is about fees for higher education,
there are various scholarships available.

References:
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