Human Resource Development Ministry has announced that even private universities will have to implement the quota system followed in their government run counterparts. How the private universities acknowledge this responsibility remains to be seen.
The New Leam Staff
The Narendra Modi government recently announced 1o% reservation for the economically backward upper castes by amending the Constitution. It has not even been a week that the government has now announced that this policy should be implemented not just by the government sector but also by the private sector.
This has been clearly dictated in the case of the private universities which will now be compelled to allow for the same 10% reservation. It was on Tuesday that the Union Minister for Human Resource Development Prakash Javedkar announced that the private universities will not only have to introduce the 10% reservation but will have to work in accordance with the government’s policy for all other caste-based communities such as the Scheduled Castes and Tribes and the Other Backward Classes.
We know that till now these quotas were only valid in the government run universities and legal provisions to reserve seats in private universities existed but so far no party had begun to implement them. The statement issued by Prakash Javedkar has caused confusion in the private universities who fear that it might create a mess in their finances.
The private sector universities in many parts of the country have been made by taking of loans from banks and it is only through their high fees that they will be able to pay back the loans; they fear that the introduction of quotas will lead them to a financial crisis.
It is being assumed by the private universities that they will have to charge subsidized fees or exempt from paying all those who come through quotas and it is for this reason that they are reluctant to open up to the idea of reservations.
Another question that is being raised by many educationists and academicians working in the field of higher education is how these students will be able to pay the fees and the quota for the economically backward privileged castes or the SC/ST and OBC categories does not make sense in the absence of a fee waiver.
Private Universities Show Reluctance towards Reservation Policy
The private universities may also be reluctant to make way for the students who come through quotas because most of these universities have been financed through loans and have a great pressure to get back the amount as soon as possible through the fees which students pay.
They assert that the recommendation by the government will have them at a serious loss. One of the proposals given by the private universities to the government is that the government should reimburse the fees of the students who come by quota and ensure that the funds do arrive in time.
But the question that this problem takes us towards is that in the absence of a shared responsibility between the private and the government sector and the inability of the government sector to contribute to the empowerment of the marginalised, how will the nation really move ahead?
Moreover as we see sophisticated and posh private universities with all the amenities whether it is air conditioned classrooms, luxurious hostels, multi-cuisine restaurants and cafeterias, swimming pools and gold courses- we are compelled to ask if the government universities should be allowed to decay in the absence of basic amenities, rarely paid teachers, nepotism in selection and appointment and with either over-flooded classrooms or empty ones?
Should there not be a shared responsibility between the private and the public universities; should there not be a proper utilisation of wealth? It is time we rethink the debate and take it beyond political rhetoric. Reservation politics has only diverted our attention from the absence of grassroots intervention and implementation of policies; we need to wonder what benefits reservation will bring us amid scarcity of employment and education? Let us think instead of being intoxicated by the politics of rhetoric.
