What the article is about:
- The article talks about underrepresentation of students from marginalised sections in PhD programme of IIMs and IITs.
Relevance:
- GS1: Social empowerment.
- Paper1: Essay
Analysis:
- Data shared by ministry of education showed that India’s elite business schools and technology institutions are lacking behind in fulfilling their social justice related commitments.
What are constitutionally mandated norms:
- The central educational institutions(reservations in admission) act,2006 mandates 15%, 7.5% and 27% quotas for SC, ST and OBC students.
What does the data say:
- According to the data of Ministry of education, number of students of SC, ST and OBC increased only marginally in past four years.
- Even though the percentage of accepted Applications is roughly the same across the reserved and general categories, the intake of students from disadvantaged sections is way below the mandated norms.
- The government’s 2019 data shows that 48% of IIT dropouts were from reserved categories, in the case of IIM , this was much higher – 62%.
Why the skew is needed to be addressed:
- The students from marginalised communities have a long history of being discriminated against, therefore A large body o scholarly literature points out the need for providing special assistance
- India can’t afford to neglect the skew as a country that is aspiring to be a knowledge economy leader.
