Impact of Reservation Policy in Higher Education: An Investigation

Introduction

This study is based on students belongs to ‘scheduled caste’ and ‘scheduled tribe’ categories generally called SCs/STs and role of reservation policy to see the impact of its implementation in Indian higher education system, about caste action; very survival of caste community as an institution to participate in higher education for bright career of SCs/STs students – even as it takes on, in a specific socio-temporal context, the dynamics of Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) individuality in contemporary Uttar Pradesh particularly in the major district of Agra.

In many ways, this is not surprising because studies of SCs/STs about in sociology and political science, it has held a central axis for sociology and political science in India. Caste studies have been a ground that political science has claimed to be its own, and the other disciplines have not greatly contested the claim. This has led to the people of various perspectives on scheduled caste/tribes, even as efforts to undermine the centrality of SCs/STs for a political issue of India have proceeded briskly.

According to United Nations Economic Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) notes that higher education includes, “all types of studies, training, and training for research at the postsecondary level, provided by universities or other educational establishments that are approved as institutions of higher education by the competent State Authorities.”

“Reservations in favor of the backward classed (BCs) were introduced long before independence in a large area, comprising the presidency areas and the princely states in the south of the Vindhyas, community in India.

Chatrapati Sahuji Maharaj, Maharaja of Kolhapur in Maharashtra, introduced reservation in favor of backward classes in as early as 1902 to eradicate poverty from amongst them and to give them their due share in the state administration. The notification of 1902 created 50% reservation in services for different communities in the State. This notification was the first government order providing for reservation for the welfare of depressed classes in India (Resham, 2012)”.

In order to provide quality education or basic education, equal opportunity matters as far as ethical grounds are concerned. Our Constitution holds unusual section “for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes”.

It is remarkable to understand that according to “the article 15(4) of constitution of India, which provides a constitutional basis for reservation in education, did not form part or the Constitution as it originally stood in 1950, although there was provision for reservation of appointments or posts in favor of any backward class of citizens under article 16(4). However, an equivalent of the current article 15(4) was the subject matter of considerable debate amongst the founding fathers of the constitution (Singh, S.N, 1996)”.