For the last year or so, I have been writing on the subject of education. In the process I have met a range of vice chancellors, professors, principals, academicians and students and while there are many lessons to be drawn from conversations with them, there's one thing I am firmly convinced of. Reservation in higher education - as even the Supreme Court has recently argued - needs to be done away with.
There may still be some justification for reserving seats for the backward classes at the primary levels, but at the higher levels it is proving to be counterproductive and is doing more harm to the constituency it seeks to promote.
Why do I say this? To begin with, reservation at the primary level ensures that children and students from the backward classes get a chance right at the start. After that has happened, it may perhaps be best to let the students sink or swim at a secondary stage. By reserving the seats initially, they have been given an equal chance. If a student is genuinely academically oriented and motivated, he will do well enough to automatically make it to the next level.
As things stand, in a large number of institutions, seats reserved for backward classes get filled simply because they are available. The problem is particularly acute in medical and engineering colleges.
A nephew of mine - at a medical college in Delhi - says he is surrounded by students - not one but dozens - from SC, ST and OBCs (the reservation of seats for medical colleges is almost 50 per cent) who are simply not interested in becoming doctors or practising medicine. Finding himself with a female student from the reserved quota who was feeling faint in the operating theatre at the sight of blood, he asked her later why she had chosen to enter medicine. Her answer was simple: she had made it through the quota system and her parents were overjoyed - no one in their wider family circle had even dreamt of becoming a doctor. She knew she may never practise but she wanted to earn the degree for their satisfaction. She certainly wasn't there for the love of the subject.
Earlier this year, I spent a day at IIT-Delhi. I managed to speak to two professors and a bunch of students who were in their final year. The subject of the increasing number of suicides among IIT students came up and almost all of them made the same point. Suicides - and depression - were more common among the reserved quota students who found it more difficult to fit in - both socially and academically.
The point the students made is that while there may be an occasional high performer among the quota students, by and large they scored a lot lower in the entrance exam and the difference in abilities shows once they were in the system. These kids get an easy ticket in but are then expected to compete with other students who are often many notches higher in terms of their abilities, knowledge and dedication levels. They just can't cope, and after a point, most stop trying. They usually have trouble adjusting, talk only amongst themselves as a group, not mingling with other students. Many crack under the pressure and a few end up taking the drastic step of ending their own lives. Almost all the students were of the view that reservation - especially at the level of an IIT - was totally counterproductive and hurting those who it is meant to aid.
If the reservation places the students who it is meant for at a disadvantage in a way, the institutions find it no easier. Filling the seats for almost all the colleges with reservation is a challenge every year. One of the IIT professors said that the faculty members watch this scenario unfold before them every year. Very early on, they can identify the students (both quota and non-quota) who "simply should not have been here" and who find themselves increasingly isolated in the system. No amount of extra help, advice or mentoring works as the students are "out of their depths". In many cases, their total lack of interest in the subject is evident too. Subjects are taught in English and some even struggle with that. Their inability to cope pushes them over the edge and several students end up depressed, as counsellors on campus testify.
So, what are we doing by insisting on such reservation? We are depriving someone genuinely keen and thrusting it down the throat of someone who may be there for all the wrong reasons. The result: at best a wasted seat and at worst a wasted life.
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