Social justice without PhDs

The government should thank the court. Implementing the new quota would have landed it in a mess

It is amazing how eminently sensible politicians can come up with incredibly stupid policy formulations. There are of course many reasons why the OBC legislation does not make sense for India; and these range from first principles to implementation. The Supreme Court has stayed the quota 8212; had it not, the practical problems in its implementation would have put the government in a more serious mess. The government should thank the Supreme Court. Really.

So what is the issue? In its desire to please all, the government promised that the OBC reservations would not be at the cost of merit. As a consequence, the government committed to increase the supply of educational opportunities namely, greater number of seats. This, the reasoning went, would ensure that the OBCs would benefit from reservations, and the higher castes would not suffer. A wonderful political solution, some might think, but it is just not workable.

It is quite apparent to anyone who has gone to an Indian university that there is a lack of infrastructure, there is a lack of proper management, and there is a lack of quality teaching and teachers. None of these can be addressed within a year or two. Had it not been for the Supreme Court, the government would have got into trouble on two fronts 8212; from OBC and forward caste students on not delivering on its promise, and from the judiciary for not being able to implement its own law. And this would have happened around general election time.

First take the case of infrastructure. It will take a few years to obtain the space, get the permissions, and finally contract out the building process. Many institutions are located in areas where they will get neither the land nor the ability to build on top of their existing facilities, either due to building bylaws or due to the current dated state of their building infrastructure. Such institutions will then need to expand into other areas. That in turn requires a larger administrative set-up, and increases costs more than proportionately.

Next take the case of administration and management of educational institutions. Our current administrations are extremely weak, do not have the skill base to utilise new management technologies and methods, and not really built for fast responses to any external or internal impulse. Increasing seats rapidly requires major improvements in internal systems, incorporation of information technologies, increased administrative staff, tighter administrative controls, etc. More importantly, they require decentralisation and flexibility in decision-making, which are not present in either public or private institutions.

But the most critical problem is related to teachers and professors. The biggest educational problem facing the country today is not the lack of educational opportunities 8212; but the lack of quality educational opportunities. Study after study have shown how poor teaching is impacting India. A recent ASER study found that the majority of children in elementary schools could not perform basic tasks. The UGC8217;s own report has shown the bulk of our colleges are quite poor. And most who have gone to top-notch educational institutions will talk about the great dearth of good teachers. Why is the lack of trained and motivated teaching professionals the most critical problem facing our higher educational system? It takes many, many years to build up a rich research and teaching human capital base at the tertiary level. It is not something that anyone can do, that too overnight.

Consequently if we need to, say, double the seats, that would require doubling the teachers and professors. But that is not possible instantaneously. We would need to double the PhD student base, which would mean improving and tightening the whole system of postgraduate research. This will take many years if we were to start now. There is another method, one that China has chosen. It has hired international teaching staff for many of its tertiary and professional educational institutions. Though a great idea, it would take a radical shift in our educational policy as well as a differential compensation policy. This appears unlikely in the near future.

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All in all, therefore, it would take many years before seats are increased in the current set of higher educational institutions. We do need to allow and facilitate the setting up of more such institutions. This process would also take several years.

The Supreme Court has asked for a credible basis for determining the share of reserved seats for OBCs. The eventual number would be somewhere between 20 and 50 per cent of the Indian population. The large range is due to the fuzziness in our caste and jati boundaries. That will lead to another set of problems in the implementation of this act. But even if it is, it would not solve the real set of problems that the OBCs and all youth are facing.

The problem has to do with their employability. It is well-known that the more educated a person the greater their expectation and the lower their employment rates. Unemployment rates for the young graduates rule in the 30 to 40 per cent range. The problem is lack of a match between what our educational institutions throw up and what the economy can take in. To give an example from a forthcoming Teamlease study, 90 per cent of the employment opportunities require vocational training, whereas 90 per cent of our school and college output has only bookish knowledge.

The OBCs and all of Indian youth would benefit more if our politicians devoted their highly innovative minds to figure out how we could ensure vocational and skill-based training for all. This Supreme Court judgment should be seen as an opportunity to satisfy everyone.

The writer heads Indicus Analytics