An Approach to Equitable Quota System (Education)

Equitable Quota System for Education

Thank you for your interest in this topic. I hope you will read this message in its entirety and contribute positively to arrive at a decent recommendation that we can take to the Govt. of India.
Here are my views on this topic and I encourage you chime in with yours.. Currently there are broadly three camps:

1. People who support the quota system as is
2. People who are against any quota system
3. People who think that the Creamy Layer must be excluded from the current quota system.

It is my humble opinion that we ought to look at this bit differently and see if we can get an understanding of the objective(s) of a quota system and then think about ways we can accomplish those objectives.

Inequality is the primary reason that the founders of this and other nations have thought about a quota system of some kind. The following are some of the inequalities I can think of:

1. Inequality in social upbringing: The community one is brought up in, the neighborhood and the kinds of kiths and kin one interacts with during early years is very important in shaping up a person both intellectually as well as socially.
2. Economic inequality: Not everyone can afford a good school.
3. Inequality in opportunities: Many opportunities are dependent on the locality one lives in.
4. Inequality in teachers: Teachers come in all grades and many in the govt. schools has the worst teachers!
5. Inequality in resources: Not every school is funded at the same level.

So, a given student could be subjected any of the above inequalities or combinations there of. Given the existence of such inequalities, it is only fair that we as parents and citizens of this country put together a system that attempts to compensate such inequalities so that all future citizens get a fair chance to get them educated. Now you might ask why wouldn’t we create enough colleges to meet the demand and done away with the quota system? The reality is that we can’t create enough colleges since the resources are limited and the demand pattern changes over years and thus the educational system may not be able to react that fast and meet the demand on a year over year basis. In addition, even if you can create enough colleges there will still be competition due to the quality of the colleges. So, there will always be a need for a quota system so long as there exists one or more inequalities…

Any quota system that we come up with must keep, I think, the following principles/philosophies in mind:

1. System must be fair to every citizens (theoretically)
2. Practical difficulties cannot be the basis for fairness or law
3. No system (or law/policy) can be relevant forever (and thus must be revised periodically)
4. It cannot violate the fundamentals of the constitution
5. It must promote competitiveness among future citizens and NOT angst
6. A poor and/or socially backward citizen must be treated as such regardless of the caste & creed they belong to (since economic & social backwardness doesn’t discriminate and affects every citizen regardless!). Why not? Is there a caste system for collecting taxes?

I believe that the educational quota system has two distinct components to it that needs to be separated and they are:

1. "Opportunity" to educate oneself
2. "Finance" required to educate oneself (money)

Someone (say Student A) going to one of the top schools of this country already have the opportunity for better education but might still need the economic assistance(Finance) to help thru the college education but not the quota (Opportunity) while someone else (say Student B) might be able to afford the college expense(Finance) but might not have had the "Opportunity" to go to one of the better schools of this country. So, the govt. needs to help Student A with "Finance" and Student B with the "Opportunity" (quota).

Using the above reasoning it is possible to classify all of our students into ONE of the following 4 categories:

A. People who need both the Opportunity AND Financial Assistance. [ low income groups in both towns and villages living in non-urban areas]

B. People who need NEITHER the Opportunity NOR the Finance. [Like most of our kids!!}

C. People who need the Opportunity but NOT the Fiancial Assistance (example, Kids of rich farmers and businessmen who are financially sound but still socially backwarded)

D. People who need Financial Assistance but NOT the Opportunity. [low/middle income families in towns who is able to afford a good school education but
cannot afford the college education]

The above scheme will accommodate pretty much everyone’s need BUT requires that the govt. split the opportunity and the financial aspects of the education system. So everybody pays the true cost of their education and people who cannot afford it will apply to the government separately for financial assistance.

The "Opportunity" to educate will also require drastic changes in the way we evaluate our students on their educational performance. There are plenty of ways that other countries have accomplished this to make sure that students from the best schools of this country and students from the typical govt school are not put in the same bucket.... we can go into specifics later...But this is one of the inequalities that must be addressed since inequalities among schools
are not the fault of the students but of us.

In addition, a set of policy must be drawn that specifically addresses each of the inequalities, mentioned above, not addressed by just introducing the above scheme (I will address this in s separate thread). I believe that the above scheme could be valid for ever (since they are generic) but the policies & operationalization rules that we would come up with to implement this scheme and address the rest of the inequalities must be revised periodically based on data gathered over the year and refine the policy accordingly on an ongoing basis.

I hope the above scheme makes sense to you all. I would love to hear both your opinion on this scheme as well as other ideas you may have to address this issue...
Sincerely

Raj
What I say is just my view and I am sure you have one that is better!