The last straw?

Marginalised politicians have very often played the reservation card to avoid slipping into obscurity. It was V.P. Singh who first initiated this trend in 1990 by implementing the Mandal Commission recommendations for quotas for OBCs in government jobs. Since then, politicians of all hues have used reservations as a tool to enlarge their political base and garner the support of backward castes and SC/STs. The current HRD Minister Arjun Singh is only the latest to join the bandwagon. After having pushed through a quota for OBC students in higher education, the HRD ministry under Singh has now ordered IITs to introduce— with “immediate effect”—quotas in the teaching faculty for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and OBCs. The government order lays down 15 per cent quota for SC, 7.5 per cent for STs and 27 per cent quota for OBCs in teaching positions. IITs currently don’t have reservation for faculty members.

Predictably, the move has led to widespread opposition in the IITs. For good reason. The latest HRD ministry salvo would mean compromising on the standards of faculty in the IITs that, in turn, would affect the quality of education. This would deal a body blow to the reputation of these institutes, which are known across the globe for their high academic standards. Already, the IITs have found it difficult in recent times to attract and retain quality faculty largely due to the low pay scales. For instance, the basic salary of a lecturer is just Rs 10,000 per month. As a result, the IITs are understaffed by 30 per cent.

Then, finding qualified candidates in the SC/ST and OBS category to fill the vacancies will not be easy as the experience with reservations in higher education itself demonstrates. A study done by the IITs themselves shows that 50 per cent of the seats reserved for the SCs and STs remain vacant, and of the remaining 50 per cent, 25 per cent candidates fail to pass the course. In a way the government has acknowledged this problem. IITs would be allowed to dereserve the posts after a year, if they do not get filled despite “best efforts”.

Given this backdrop, implementing the government’s reservation policy will be tough. Indeed, the objective of helping SC/ST and OBC students can be better achieved by undertaking a complete overhaul of the education sector. The answer lies in strengthening primary education, which can provide the platform for the underprivileged sections of the society to compete with the best and make it to India’s best institutions on merit. Reservations don’t address the problem and can only be a stop-gap arrangement at best.