Abstract
Borooah focuses on the reservation for places in higher education which is a corollary of the government’s (constitutionally mandated) duty to favour persons from the “reserved” categories at the expense of persons from the “non-reserved” or “general” categories, in admission to higher education institutions. This duty is formalised by the requirement that a certain proportion of seats in publicly funded or publicly assisted higher educational institutions have to be filled by persons from reserved categories. He evaluates the amount by which higher education reservation has benefited persons from the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes by giving them a higher share of places in higher education than they might have obtained in its absence.
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Notes
- 1.
For example, converts to Islam from Hindu “unclean occupations”: halalkhors, helas, lalbegis, dhobis, hajjams, chiks, faqirs. However, subsequent extensions were made to this list for Mazhabi Sikhs (in 1956) and neo-Buddhists (in 1990).
- 2.
Article 342 of the Indian Constitution empowers the President, after consultation with the Governor, to specify the tribes or tribal communities in a state which will be accorded Scheduled Tribes status.
- 3.
For the history and evolution of caste-based preferential policies in India see Osborne (2001).
- 4.
This Commission was established in 1979 by the Janata Party government under Prime Minister Morarji Desai with a mandate to “identify the socially or educationally backward”.
- 5.
Article 340 of the Indian Constitution empowers the government to create such classes and in 1955, following the report of the “Kalelkar” Commission, 2,339 groups were designated as belonging to the OBC.
- 6.
See Samudra Gupta Kashyap, “Demand for Tribal Status Becomes Louder in Assam”, Indian Express, 24 October 2016, http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/demand-for-tribal-status-assam-3099402/ (accessed 12 December 2016).
- 7.
An analysis of reservation in jobs is provided in Borooah et al. (2007).
- 8.
The Hindu, 20 June 2013, http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/9885-seats-available-in-17-iits-results-on-june-23/article4834329.ece?css=print (accessed 11 April 2016).
- 9.
See “This year, IITs will admit students with even 6 percent in entrance examination”, Times of India, 14 July 2015, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/entrance-exams/This-year-IITs-will-admit-students-with-even-6-in-entrance-exam/articleshow/48061694.cms (accessed 11 April 2016).
- 10.
First Post, 6 August 2015. http://www.firstpost.com/india/90-percent-of-iit-roorkee-dropouts-are-backward-caste-a-case-against-affirmative-action-2379964.html (accessed 12 December 2016).
- 11.
A person was regarded as “poor” if his/her household’s monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) was in the lowest quintile of the distribution of MPCE over all the households.
- 12.
A person is poor if his/her monthly household per capita consumption expenditure (HPCE) is in the lowest decile of HPCE over its distribution over all households.
- 13.
See “This year, IITs will admit students with even 6 percent in entrance examination”, Times of India, 14 July 2015, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/entrance-exams/This-year-IITs-will-admit-students-with-even-6-in-entrance-exam/articleshow/48061694.cms (accessed 11 April 2016).
- 14.
- 15.
In the language of inequality analysis this transfer from an “access-rich” group to an “access-poor” group constitutes a progressive transfer and, by virtue of this, is inequality reducing.
- 16.
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Borooah, V.K. (2017). Estimating the Benefits of Reservation in Higher Education. In: The Progress of Education in India. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54855-5_4
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