[Reader-list] Meeting the challenge of Mandal II - second part (Reservation - an alternative proposal)

[Trisha Gupta]

Second part of a two-part article in the Hindu. Again, please click
on the link below to see the tables accompanying the text, which
are integral to understanding the alternative proposal being put
forward.
Trisha

http://www.hindu.com/2006/05/23/stories/2006052305841100.htm


Reservation — an alternative proposal

Satish Deshpande & Yogendra Yadav

In this second and concluding part of their series, the authors
offer a method to ensure both merit and social justice are taken
into account.


THE ALTERNATIVE proposed here is rooted in the recognition that we
need to go beyond a simple-minded reduction of `merit' and `social
justice' to singular and mutually exclusive categories. In reality,
both merit and social justice are multi-dimensional, and the pursuit
of one does not require us to abandon the other. The proposal seeks
to identify the viable common ground that permits simultaneous
commitment to both social justice and excellence. It seeks to
operationalise a policy that is morally justified, intellectually
sound, politically defensible, and administratively viable.

Let us present the basic principles that underlie this proposal
before getting into operational details. First of all, this
proposal is based on a firm commitment to policies of affirmative
action flowing both from the constitutional obligation to realise
social justice and also from the overall success of the experience
of reservations in the last 50 years. Secondly, we recognise the
moral imperative to extend affirmative action to educational
opportunities, for a lack of these opportunities results in the
inter-generational reproduction of inequalities and severely
restricts the positive effects of job reservations. Thirdly, it
needs to be remembered that the end of affirmative action can be
served by various means including reservation. The state's basic
commitment is to the end, not any particular means. Finally,
flowing from the experience of reservations for socially and
educationally backward classes (SEBCs), we need to recognise that
there are multiple, cross-cutting, and overlapping sources of
inequality of educational opportunities, all of which need redress.
This is what our proposal seeks to do.

The proposal involves computing scores for `academic merit' and for
`social disadvantage' and then combining the two for admission to
higher educational institutions. Since the academic evaluation is
less controversial, we concentrate here on the evaluation of
comparative social disadvantage. We suggest that the social
disadvantage score should be divided into its group and individual
components. For the group component, we consider disadvantages
based on caste and community, gender, and region. These scores must
not be decided arbitrarily or merely on the basis of impressions. We
suggest that these disadvantages should be calibrated on the basis
of available statistics on representation in higher education of
different castes/communities and regions, each of these being
considered separately for males and females. The required data
could come from the National Sample Survey or other available
sources. It would be best, of course, if a special national survey
were commissioned for this purpose.

Besides group disadvantages, this scheme also takes individual
disadvantages into consideration. While a large number of factors
determine individual disadvantages (family history, generational
depth of literacy, sibling education, economic resources, etc.), we
believe there are two robust indicators of individual disadvantage
that can be operationally used in the system of admission to public
institutions: parental occupation and the type of school where a
person passed the high school examination. These two variables
allow us to capture the effect of most of the individual
disadvantages, including the family's educational history and
economic circumstances.

In the accompanying tables, we illustrate how this scheme could be
operationalised. It needs to be underlined that the weightages
proposed here are tentative, based on our limited information, and
meant only to illustrate the scheme. The exact weights could be
decided after examining more evidence. We suggest that weightage
for academic merit and social disadvantage be distributed in the
ratio of 80:20. The academic score could be converted to a
standardised score on a scale of 0-80, while the social
disadvantage score would range from 0 to a maximum of 20.


Awarding social disadvantage points

Table A shows how the group disadvantage points can be awarded.
There are three axes of group disadvantage considered here: the
relative backwardness of the region one comes from; one's caste and
community (only non-SC-ST groups are considered here); and one's
gender. The zones in the top row refer to a classification of
regions — this can be at State or even sub-State region level —
based on indicators of backwardness that are commonly used and can
be agreed upon. Thus Zone I is the most backward region while Zone
IV is the most developed region. The disadvantage points would thus
decrease from left to right for each caste group and gender.

The castes and communities identified here are clubbed according to
broadly similar levels of poverty and education indicators (once
again the details of this can be agreed upon). The lower OBCs and
Most Backward Castes along with OBC Muslims are considered most
disadvantaged or least-represented among the educated, affluent,
etc., while upper caste Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Parsis,
etc., are considered to be the most `forward' communities.

Disadvantage points thus decrease from top to bottom. Gender is
built into this matrix, with women being given disadvantage points
depending on their other attributes, that is, caste and region.
Thus the hypothetical numbers in this table indicate different
degrees of relative disadvantage based on all three criteria, and
most importantly, also on the interaction effects among the three.
Thus, a woman from the most backward region who belongs to the
lower OBC, MBC, or Muslim OBC groups gets the maximum score of 12,
while a male from the forward communities from the most developed
region gets no disadvantage points at all.

Tables B and C work in a similar manner for determining individual
disadvantage. For these tables, all group variables are excluded.
Table B looks at the type of school the person passed his or her
secondary examination from, and the size of the village, town, or
city where this school was located. Anyone going to an ordinary
government school in a village or small town gets the maximum of 5
points in this matrix. The gradation of schools is done according
to observed quality of education and implied family resources, and
this could also be refined. A student from an exclusive English
medium public school in a large metro gets no disadvantage points.

Table C looks at parental occupation as a proxy for family resources
(that is, income wealth, etc., which are notoriously difficult to
ascertain directly). Since this variable is vulnerable to
falsification and would need some efforts at verification, we have
limited the maximum points awarded here to three. Children of
parents who are outside the organised sector and are below the
taxable level of income get the maximum points, and the occupation
of both parents is considered. Those with either parent in Class I
or II jobs of the government, or in managerial or professional jobs
get no points at all. Intermediate jobs in the organised sector,
including Class III and IV jobs in the government, are reckoned to
be better placed than those in the unorganised, low pay sector.

Combining the scores in the three matrices will give the total
disadvantage score, which can then be added to the standardised
academic merit score to give each candidate's final score.
Admissions for all non-SC-ST candidates, that is, for 77.5 per cent
of all seats, can then be based on this total score.


Differences and advantages

While our proposal shares with the proposal mooted by the Ministry
of Human Resource Development (MHRD) the commitment to affirmative
action and the desire to extend it to educational opportunities,
the scheme we propose differs from the Ministry's proposal in many
ways. The Ministry's proposal seeks to create a bloc of `reserved'
seats. Our proposal applies to all the seats not covered by the
existing reservation for the SC, ST, and other categories. The MHRD
proposal recognises only group disadvantages and uses caste as the
sole criterion of group disadvantage in educational inequalities.
We too acknowledge the significance of group disadvantages and that
of caste as the single most important predictor of educational
inequalities. But our scheme seeks to fine-tune the identification
by recognising other group disadvantages such as region and gender.
Moreover, our scheme is also able to address the interaction effects
between different axes of disadvantage (such as region, caste, and
gender, or type of school and type of location, etc.).

While recognising group disadvantages, our scheme provides some
weightage to individual disadvantages relating to family background
and type of schooling. Our scheme also recognises that people of all
castes may suffer from individual disadvantages, and offers redress
for such disadvantages to the upper castes as well. While the MHRD
proposal is based on an all-or-nothing approach to recognising
disadvantages (either you are an OBC or you are not), our proposal
allows for flexibility in dealing with variations in degrees of
disadvantage.

The scheme we propose here is a modified version of one that was
designed for the selection process of a well-known international
fellowship programme for higher education, where it was successful
for some years. Thousands of applications have already been
screened using this scheme. A similar scheme has been used for
admissions to Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. The working
of this scheme does not seem to offer any insurmountable
operational difficulties, despite the vast expansion in scale that
some contexts might involve.

In the final analysis, the most critical advantage of a scheme such
as the one we are proposing is that it helps to push thinking on
social justice along constructive and rational lines. One of the
inescapable dilemmas of caste-based affirmative action policies is
that they cannot help intensifying caste identities. The debate
then gets vitiated because it concentrates on the identities rather
than on the valid social reasons why those identities are used as
indicators of disadvantage. Our scheme clearly links caste
identities to measurable empirical indicators of disadvantage. It
thus helps to de-essentialise caste and to focus attention on the
relative progress made by these communities.

Thus groups such as Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, etc., occupy
particular positions in this scheme purely by virtue of the levels
of educational advantage or disadvantage. The scheme allows
policies to be calibrated according to the changing relative
positions of different groups, and takes care of such issues as
poor upper castes, `creamy layer,' etc. It reminds us, in short,
that caste or community matter not in themselves, but because they
continue to be important indicators of tangible disadvantages in
our unequal and unjust society.

(This proposal has been developed in consultation with many social
scientists.)