The Constitution has recognised the less privileged and more disadvantaged groups Scheduled Castes for their structural disadvantage based on ritual status and Scheduled Tribes for their geographic isolation and disadvantage) for special safe-guards and affirmative measures such as anti-discrimination, anti-atrocity and positive discrimination laws such as prohibition of the practice of un-touch ability (in the case of SCs), protection of right to the land and habitation (in the case of STs), provision of scholarships and reservations in education and employment (for  both the SCs and STs), and more recently, ear marking sub-plans in union and state budgets cutting across various departments of the Government for improving the lot of both the SCs and STs. In fact sub-plan provisions have facilitated creation of an entrepreneurial and commercial class among the SCs and STs in the past decade or so.

Effects of Reservations in Higher Education:

• Without doubt, one can safely claim that reservations in higher education and in government employment are the main sources of creating a ‘new’ educated middle class among the Scheduled Castes and Tribes in the post-independent India.
• The stricter implementation of reservations in higher education and in government jobs have seen motivated more and more first generation SCs and STs to break the glass-ceiling of social mobility, thereby empowering them in all respects – social, economic and political.
• The impact of such empowerment is cyclical.   
• Irrespective of the region and state, the levels of literacy among SCs and STs have increased.
• The enrolments in elementary education have increased too.
• The drop-out rates came down significantly and the rates of retention have improved at various levels, though they continue to remain a cause of concern. The transition from elementary to secondary and from secondary to higher education has improved, through there is much to be desired in these transitions.

Higher Education Participation: 

• The Gross enrolment rations (GER) of SCs and STs have witnessed tremendous improvement in the past fifteen years.
• A case in point is the way the SCs/STs are able to fill in the jobs at the top and of the civil services and also seeking to transform their representation in once elite professional courses such as engineering, medicine, law and university teaching.
• Subsequently, this has resulted in re-structuring the middle class, professional occupational profile of these castes and tribes in the recent times. However, it may also be noted that the bulk of Group IV jobs, namely, the lower government and private sector jobs, are largely populated by the SCs and STs, reproducing a sort of a hierarchical pyramid in modern, secular occupations.
• Another development that is observed in the post liberalisation era is that more and more educated SC/ST professionals are going abroad for higher education and for employment, and are also setting up diasporic groups in their host countries, which signifies tremendous social and economic empowerment the disadvantaged have attained.

A Few Concerns:

• However, a few concerns are striking. The adverse effect of the growing process of privatisation of higher education on the socially disadvantaged is significant as it seems to limit social mobility prospects among aspiring SCs and STs.
• Two implications may be drawn.
  • First, since much of the growth of higher education in the post 2000s is in private higher professional education, it is not accessible to large sections of SCs and STs as it does not facilitate reservations as mandated in the Constitution.
  • Second, as there are no reservations in private sector employment where large scale employment opportunities are currently found, SCs and STs are either left out or become educated unemployed.
  • These twin issues in a way keep the momentum that the country had gained post-independence in stimulating a process of social change among most disadvantaged tardy.
• Another cause of concern amidst such a dismal picture of educated employment scenario is that the jobs in the government sector have consistently shrunk and are not expanding as a result of growing trends of privatization in post liberalization era.

The gender parity among all groups (in particular among SCs) remains a serious issue. While participation of women in higher education and increased, it remains for behind men, many women are still to be covered by the policy frame and the scope of opportunities for social and economic empowerment. Lack of employability among SCs and STs, therefore, would also lead to further disinterest in education among these social groups. It is beyond doubt that access to and retention in good quality higher education and subsequent opportunities for social empowerment among these historically marginalised groups.