Reservation system in education

It has been about seventy years since India has attained independence and about the same time that, we have been a republic nation. Our constitution gives us the right to freedom and most importantly to exercise this freedom in an equitable manner. At the same time it is mandatory on the part of the state to ensure that equality prevails in all sections of the society. However, the argument was, that India was not yet free from the bonds of social evils like caste and religion discrimination, untouchability etc. To counter this the government drafted laws regarding the controversial reservation system in the constitution. These laws were to act like an equalizer in the field of play. Now the question that lies in front of us is whether implementing this reservation system has really helped the downtrodden or has it given the oppressed, or rather the ones who claim to be oppressed an undue advantage?

1. Don Bosco Institute of Technology Reservation System in Education UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF RENJIT SIR

2. GROUP MEMBERS ROCHELE PINTO 42 AMMAR QAZI 43 TANISH QUADROS 44 SRIDHAR RAMPELLI 45 PRANAV RANE 46 DEON RAPOSE 47

3. INTRODUCTION It has been about seventy years since India has attained independence and about the same time that, we have been a republic nation. Our constitution gives us the right to freedom and most importantly to exercise this freedom in an equitable manner. At the same time it is mandatory on the part of the state to ensure that equality prevails in all sections of the society. However , the argument was, that India was not yet free from the bonds of social evils like caste and religion discrimination, untouchability etc. To counter this the government drafted laws regarding the controversial reservation system in the constitution. These laws were to act like an equalizer in the field of play. Now the question that lies in front of us is whether implementing this reservation system has really helped the downtrodden or has it given the oppressed, or rather the ones who claim to be oppressed an undue advantage?

4. Our objective is to reflect upon the current scenario of reservation in the education sector by means of this presentation. Thus making us to think about the reservation system, on grounds which we never thought before.

5. BACKGROUND OF RESERVATION SYSTEM The reservation system finds its origin in the age-old caste system of India. The caste system at its birth was meant to divide people on the basis of their occupation like teaching and preaching (Brahmins), kingship and war (Kshatriya) and lastly business( vaish ) etc. but soon it became an instrument to divide the society on castebasis , creating various walls between different sections of the society. Today we stand divided widely into Hindu, Muslim, SC, ST & OBCs with newer reservations coming up for other different sections of the society like Christians, Kashmiris, Jats , Kashmiri Pandits , Tribals etc . Firstly, we need to understand that the reservation system only divides the society leading to discrimination and conflicts between different sections. It is oppressive and does not find its basis in casteism . It is actually the antithesis of a communal living. Currently , as per the government policy, 15% of the government jobs and 15% of the students admitted to universities must be from Scheduled castes and for the Scheduled tribes there is a reservation of about 7.5 %.

6. Other than this, the state governments also follow their own reservation policies respectively based upon the population constitution of each state. So nearly 50% seats are reserved. Whether to have a reservation/quota system or not is still a debatable question in India. The Indian Constitution has a law for the same and according to this; reservation has been made to bring underprivileged classes at par with privileged or general ones. There are numerous reservations like reservation for women, reservation for physically challenged, reservation for economically backward class, reservation for Scheduled Castes etc .. The deep rooted caste system in India is the actual cause of the reservation system.

7. CONSEQUENCES OF THE RESERVATION POLICY Though, reservation system is an evident discrimination, but it had been started with a very good objective of uplifting the socially backward society to give them equality of opportunities. But with time its meaning and the way it has been taken by the people has left many of us to believe that it has stopped delivering for what it was made. People have started misusing it. There are many examples of people making false documents just to get a seat in a college or a job. This leaves the more eligible candidate to give their seat to a person belonging to a reserve category The deep rooted caste system in India is the actual cause of the reservation system. Dominantly , the skin colour of the person was taken into account at the time when caste system came into being, like the fairer ones enjoyed being Brahmins or upper caste and the darker ones were Shudras or lower caste. This led to the total segregation of our society and to equalize this, the idea of reservation came into existence after independence. Hence in 1950 the quota for backward classes was made and from time to time many new quotas and reservations have been added to this. But still, the condition of so called underprivileged sections in India are the same even that we have crossed so many decades of independence

8. Reservation is working in the opposite direction to its main objective as is demarcating the society further. It is being used to uplift one section of the society at the cost of another, which is not fair. Instead of this there should be equal opportunities for all. Moreover , a capable candidate does not need any certificate of being from a lower caste to prove their worth. It is his mind, education and ability to compete that can bring change in life. Taking a seat just by showing your under privileged certificate won’t give you anything, but just the degree or a job. Also the reservation system in India is creating a workforce which is not capable enough to compete at the global level. India needs people for growth and development but reservation is adding undeserving candidates as well.

9. CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS The spirit of equality pervades the provisions of the Constitution of India, as the main aim of the founders of the Constitution was to create an egalitarian society wherein social, economic and political justice prevailed and equality of status and opportunity are made available to all. However, owing to historical and traditional reasons, certain classes of Indian citizens are under severe social and economic disabilities [so] that they cannot effectively enjoy either equality of status or of opportunity. Therefore the Constitution accords to these weaker sections of society protective discrimination in various articles, including Article 15(4 ). This clause empowers the state, notwithstanding anything to the contrary in Articles 15(1) and 29(2), to make special reservation for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes The exact necessities for the reservation in services in favour of the members of the SC/STs have been made in the Constitution of India. They are as follows: Article 15(4) and 16(4) of the Constitution enabled both the state and Central Governments to reserve seats in public services for the members of the SC and ST, thereby, enshrining impartiality of opportunity in matters of civic service.

10. Article 15(4) states that: “ Nothing in this Article shall prevent the State from making any provision for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of any backward class or citizens, which, in the opinion of the State, is not adequately represented in the services under the State.”

11. Article 16(4 A) states that: “ Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any provisions for reservation in the matter of promotion to any class or classes of posts in the services under the State in favour of SCs and STs which in the opinion of the State are not adequately represented under the State”(Constitutional 77th Amendment, - Act, 1995).

12. Article 16 (4 B) states that: “Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from considering any unfilled vacancies of a year which are reserved for being filled up in that year in accordance with any provision for reservation made under clause (4) or clause (4A) as a separate class of vacancies to be filled up in any succeeding year or years and such class of vacancies shall not be considered together with the vacancies of the year in which they are being filled up for determining the ceiling of fifty percent reservation on total number of vacancies of that year”

13. CUT-OFF MARKS FOR JEE MAIN FOR DIFFERENT RESERVED CATEGORIES

14. DATA ANALYSIS OF RESERVATION IN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

15. RESERVATION SEATS IN COLLEGES OF MAHARASHTRA

16. RESERVED SEATS FOR SCs IN TEACHING/NON-TEACHING POSTS IN CENTRAL UNIVERSITIES

17. STATE/UT WISE LITERACY RATES OF SCs

18. IMPACT OF RESERVATION ON EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM In the case of admission in educational institutions, the availability of assessments about the impact of reservation in higher education is limited . The limited evidence indicates that the student enrolment has increased under reservation . In 1981, one estimate put the proportion of graduate students around 3.3 per cent for SCs and 0.8 per cent for STs – which is highly disproportionate to the actual population share of SC/STs. By the late 1990’s, the proportion of SC students to the total number of students enrolled rose to 7.8 per cent and for the STs, it rose to 2.7 per cent . This is nevertheless low if we look at the actual share of the SC/ST population to the total population – 16 per cent and 8 per cent respectively. Hence, it is difficult to estimate how many SC/ST students have benefited by the reservation policy.

19. One estimate indicates that in 1996/97, roughly 5,10,000 SC students and 1,80,000 ST students were enrolled. Of these, roughly about 2,00,000 students from both the categories may have been enrolled in desirable programmes in higher education where reservation matters. Weisskopf (2005) estimates conclude that about a third of SC/ST students enrolled in universities were pursuing higher education in desirable programmes because of the reservation policy. This implies that out of the approximately 7,00,000 SC/ST students attending universities, only a portion of them are enrolled into programmes of their choice; SC/STs obtain a much lower share in preferred institutions. In many cases, despite reservation being the norm, it is accepted only in theory and defies implementation of any sorts. Therefore, there is a substantial amount of catching up to do in order to reach the required level of 16 per cent and 8 per cent reservation for SC/STs

20. CONCLUSION Reservations are intended to increase the social diversity in campuses by lowering the entry criteria for certain identifiable groups that are grossly underrepresented in proportion to their numbers in the general population. Caste is the most used criteria to identify underrepresented groups. However, there are other identifiable criteria for underrepresentation: gender (women), state of domicile (North Eastern States, as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh), rural people, etc. are under-represented, as revealed by the Government of India sponsored National Family Health and National Sample surveys. The underlying theory is that the underrepresentation of the identifiable groups is a legacy of the Indian caste systems. After India gained independence, the Constitution of India listed some erstwhile groups as Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST). The framers of the Constitution believed that, due to the caste system, SCs and the STs were historically oppressed and denied respect and equal opportunity in Indian society and were thus under-represented in nation-building activities.

21. The Constitution laid down 15% and 7.5% of vacancies to government aided educational institutes and for jobs in the government/public sector as „reserved quota‟ for the SC and ST candidates respectively, for a period of five years, after which the situation was to be reviewed. Now a days politicians are playing a major role in reservation policy. The reservation policy was only for 10 years after the independence, for upliftment of SC and ST but till now it is continue and no one has taken any step to amend it or revise it or to change it. The reason behind this is the population of SC and ST in country. Nearly 33% voting is done by SC and ST so now if they make any change in the reservation policy against the SC and ST then they have to suffer a lot for the same. So they are not taking any steps against the reservation policy.

22. RECOMMENDATIONS The reservation shouldn’t be based on factors such as religion or caste as it would add to discrimination based on it rather than solve the problem.This couldn’t be implemented directly as it would cause widespread protest/riots across the country Hence what could be done is reducing the percentage of reservation and redefining the backward classes by detailed analysis of census by expert analysts.However the caste based reservation should be completely demolished within a period of 10 years. India has mere 65% literacy rate. This is a clear indication that the India lacks the adequate infrastructure. Thus the government should draft policies to ensure that all citizens receives a formal primary and secondary education. Without which it would be trivial to talk about higher education.Efforts should also be made to standardize the level of education in all schools across the country The government should create awareness among the people about the scemes that exist so that the ones it was designed for can take advantage of it.

23. Scholarships and relaxation of fees should be available for the candidates based on their financial status. To avoid misuse of such policies a stern penalty such as, prison time of 3 years should exist for the offenders5) The creamy layer criterion should be applicable for reservation that is provided. Once a 95%-100% literacy rate is achieved The reservation system should be abolished as a whole and the only way it should be implemented if at all it is, is to create social and cultural diversity in universities, as done in most of the foreign universities

24. REFERENCES Basu , Durga Das (2008). Introduction to the Constitution of India . Nagpur: LexisNexis Butterworths Wadhwa . p . 98. ISBN 978-81 -8038- 559-9. Chapter 3- An Assessment of Reservations ( Pg 32)". News . Dalit Bahujan Media. Retrieved 17 November 2011. Financial Support". University Grants Commission, India. Retrieved 20 October 2011. Laskar , Mehbubul Hassan. "Rethinking Reservation in Higher Education in India". ILI Law Review. 4)Education Safeguards". Department of Education . Government of India. Retrieved 27 November 2011. Parliament of India. Retrieved 4 November 2011. The Untouchables of India". Praxis . Retrieved 20 October 2011 National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, Annual Report: 1993-94, 18-22. National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, Annual Report: 1996-97 & 1997-98. Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department of Education of India, Annual Report: 1996-97. http ://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2011/02/educational-reservations-india-solutions/

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