There was a time ~ not very long ago ~ when the term higher education, (HE) meant chiefly teaching educational programmes at higher (post-secondary) levels in diverse disciplines and academic research conducted in higher educational institutions such as colleges and universities funded, in large part, by the state for promotion and cultivation of such precious public goods as scientific (original) inventions, new knowledge, new theoretical/ analytical discovery and insights into major dimensions of human history, society, arts and culture.

Unlike primary or secondary schools which impart universal basic education, the HEarena was historically supposed to be thronged by those who happen to have not only proven intellectual superiority but also with an innate thirst for deeper knowledge/truth and its persistent scholarly pursuits. This is how the HE-system has been, for long, perhaps until the 1970s ~ a distinguished, sustainable and steady source of overall soci e tal progression and flourish, scientifically, technologically, socially, politically and culturally. However, there has been an unpalatably skewed representation/participation in HE in favour of elite and socio-economically well-off sections of population ~ a fact which has reflected, for long, a social injustice rooted in the economic and political systems as a breeding-ground of perennial inequality in the distribution of income and wealth.

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Lately ~ especially over post-WWII decades ~ many concerted criticisms and analyses of this historical inequity in the traditional HE have been voiced chiefly from political standpoints and mainly by socio-political activists. However, these campaigns for greater equality in HE in terms of participation of all classes and castes seem often to remain oblivious to the historic fact that it is only the intellectually able and innately academic minded candidates, not other members even of the elite and wealthy families, who used to get admission to institutions of higher learning and research.

Although this reflects squarely a top priority that used to be traditionally accorded to the maintenance of academic/intellectual excellence and standard of HE, this should by no means be construed as an alibi for stark social inequity manifest in a disproportionately meagre participation of candidates from socioeconomically weaker sections of whom many naturally are born with no less intellectual potentialities and innately academic inclinations than their counterparts from well-to-do households. Most of the former group remain deprived of HE, because their households cannot afford to spare even a single adult family member ~ however academically brilliant and motivated ~ for higher learning in college/ university for even a single year with out working and contributing to the survival of the entire family itself.

Therefore, there has historically been a provision of scholarships and benevolent support from state or private sources for HE of such potentially outstanding candidates of the underprivileged section. Dr B. R Ambedkar, one of the finest intellectual stalwarts of India of the preceding century with superior education and exposure abroad being one of its glaring illustrations. However, this cannot hide the basic historic fact that many intellectually gifted and innately academic minded youth from socio-economically weaker households remain deprived of HE opportunities both because of extreme paucity of scholarships as well as inordinately high opportunity cost of HE for households steeped in abject poverty. Historically, HE, thus, has remained restrictive on the premise of the basic (natural) axiom of inequality in individual intellectual endowment.

That is, human beings of high intellectual calibre, ability and academic inclination are born naturally to be fewer in number and are also distributed randomly across an entire cohort of a population, irrespective of class, caste and creed. This perfectly echoes what the illustrious modern Bengali poet of the last century, Jibanananda Das, writes in his proverbial statement: ‘All are not poets, but a few are poets’. Accordingly, it would not be unreasonable to presume that there must have been many Nobel-prize winners over the preceding century who came from very underprivileged socioeconomic backgrounds. This is, of course, not to deny that at any given point of time a society would have had many more intellectual stalwarts originating in weaker socio-economic background if provisions of scholarships or financial assistance for this group would have been larger both in terms of amount and number.

Thus, a common bid across the globe (except a few countries like India) to address the necessity of taking intellectually gifted candidates from underprivileged families on board at HE institutions has never been a policy of reserving a fixed proportion of seats in colleges or universities for students from deprived classes or castes, not to mention additional relaxations in stipulated intellectual and volitional abilities at the time of admission. This reflects a longstanding pragmatic conviction particularly in these societies that academic standard and excellence in HE, unlike in universal school education, is too precious to be compromised under any circumstances ~ let alone in the name or cause of social equity or justice.

However, of late ~ especially after WWII ~ in the wake of neoliberal projects of massification, marketization and privatization of HE, the western world has embraced affirmative action to widen participation (read ma r ket demand) in HE of youth from underprivileged sections sometimes almost indiscriminately (i.e. irrespective of levels of intellectual ability and academic volition stipulated officially for admission) via arguably a backdoor of invoking a notion of ‘plurality’ of students per se (in terms of racial, cultural, ethnicity traits), which, it is argued, exerts an independent influence towards achieving greater efficacy of HE. Apart from the fact that this plurality-argument for relaxations, if necessary, in academic standards and eligibility in the admission process has been frowned upon in apex court judgements in most western nations, recent research appears distinctly uncertain, dodgy and unclear over the extent of realisability of purported effects of increased diversity per se via affirmative action on the academic performance of students from disadvantaged groups or the achievement of the goal of social integration and equity in HE campuses. (For evidence on this see my recent monograph Higher Education and Intellectual Retrogression: The Neoliberal Reign, New York/ London: Routledge, 2023).

Indeed, there exists a lingering concern about affirmative action’s potentially plausible effects towards lowering overall academic standards of HE. For example, a special adviser to the Education Secretary in UK wrote in 2013: “Although they would not put it like this, most prominent people in the education world tacitly accept that failing to develop the talents of the most able is a price worth paying to be able to pose as defenders of ‘equality’”. In this broad global scenario of affirmative action in HE, Indian thinking is pretty unique for its sustained advocacy of a policy of reservation, which is often cou pled with relaxations, if necessary, in eligibility for admission of students from constitutionally disadvantaged sections and castes (especially when reserved seats are not filled up by adhering to a common set of stipulated academic criteria for admission to HE institutions).

All this, while being heavily instrumental to massive expansion of enrolment from underrepresented social categories, together with increased diversity of teaching courses, very often end up being points of no return, if not negative at societal level. The clue to such outcomes is not very far to seek. The admission of pupils from socio economically weaker sections to HE institutions via both reservation and relaxation of eligibility criteria for admission often has a great potential of diluting the overall academic standard of education which in turn frustrates the core philosophy behind HE. This is mainly because of the evidently limited success or perhaps even a failure of the commonly perceived ‘catching-up’ effects on intellectually weak students admitted via reservation.

Therefore, this uniquely Indian policy of ‘reservation’ or quota in admission to HE institutions, when coupled with academic relaxation for admission of academically weaker students from reserved categories, effectually grafts a group with lower academic merit on to a meritorious majority (which comprises of students from all socio-economic categories), and often proves to be misplaced. This is because of two intertwined reasons. HE ~ in contrast to elementary/higher secondary education ~ is not meant to be a major vehicle for achieving the goal of social justice, since social injustice is an outcome of a complex interplay of many societal forces such as political economy, history, culture, politics and religion. Secondly, any attempt at grafting a small group of low intellectual calibre has often been a major cause of tremendous tension and stress among the students of weak merit, manifesting in depression and related mental torments culminating sometimes into incidences of suicides in campuses.

The universal right to school education or a universal adult franchise in elections in a democracy is a notion which is eminently inapplicable in case of HE for the simple reason that HE calls for superior intellectual abilities and passionate academic motivations ~ some distinct inherently cognitive resources, which cannot be manufactured or injected. Let this clear and natural dictum be followed perennially by the thinking and praxis in the sphere of HE not be allowed to be muddled by letting political interests interfere in the socially sacrosanct domain of higher learning and research. Its corollary, of course, is a manifold expansion and liberality in the provision of scholarships and other financial support to the meticulously identified cohort of genuinely meritorious candidates with an innate academic affinity coming from socio-economically underprivileged and deprived sections of the society and polity.

(The writer is an independent scholar and former Rajiv Gandhi Chair Professor in Contemporary Studies, Central University of Allahabad, India)