Is the Indian Education System Catering to the Diverse Needs of First Generation Students?

Setting The Context

With the emergence of the knowledge-based society from the mid twentieth century, greater access to higher education has become not only an educational issue but also a social one. A special focus has been given to increasing the access of higher education by the government of India in recent years. The challenge of inclusiveness is the central agenda of Indian government and has been clearly reflected in the newly launched National Education Policy (2020) and previously in the eleventh and twelfth five-year plan documents (FICCI, 2022; Varghese & Malik, 2016; Tilak, 2015; British Council, 2014). This new vision of accessibility has increased the focus on students staying in schools. As a result of the various reforms done by the Indian government at lower levels of schooling, investment in universities, and development of colleges and universities and providing support to the students who belong to minorities have borne fruit (Thorat, 2008). Now the passage from school to college/universities is becoming the norm for a growing and diversifying body of students. Today, young adults from lower-income backgrounds are pursuing educational trajectories that would have been distant dreams for their parents. Though the pace of expansion of higher education is commendable, many children seeking higher education are first-generation students in India and their number will rise in future. British Council (2014) highlights that in ten years’ time these will be an increase of 15 million students on today’s enrolment rates and they will constitute a huge number of first-generation students in India. Moreover, the presence of first-generation students is not only confined to general streams but they outreach in professional courses also. For example, nearly one-third of candidates admitted on the first two days of the single window counseling process for admission to Tamil Nadu's top engineering colleges are first-generation graduates. Of the 5,333 candidates who had their pick of technical courses in the state, 1,699 will be the first in their families to enter college (Times of India, 2014, 10^th July). The existing facts and figures highlight that higher education campuses of India are now marked by the presence first-generation students ranging from diverse socioeconomic groups in terms of their caste, ethnic, class, linguistic, regional, and religious backgrounds who were earlier excluded from higher education due to various socio-economic and historical reasons and thereby changing the social composition of higher education institutions. Thus, the number of first-generation students who are now crossing the gates of higher education institutions is increasing in India with the massification of Indian higher education system. But the existing literature in the Indian context do not focus explicitly on first generation students but instead consider general issues of widening participation, patterns of choice, increasing access for students from variously disadvantaged backgrounds or increasing equality of participation via changes in university provision. Therefore, the research in this area is imperative. Moreover, majority of the literature have documented the struggles that first-generation college students face in the western context, little empirical research exists about the challenges encountered by this population in the Indian context. With this background, this article is guided by four research questions: (i) Who are first generation students? (ii) What are the characteristics of first-generation students in Indian context? (iii) What are the challenges and issues encountered by first-generation students? (iv) Whether Indian Education system is well equipped to cater to the diverse needs of this marginalized section of the society?