Accessing Higher Education, Affirmative Action and Structured Inequality: Indian Experience

Abstract

This chapter probes into what happens to the beneficiaries of special provisions while they are pursuing higher education within the existing structured inequalities of caste, culture and economic diversities in the era of liberalization, globalization and privatization. Structured inequalities cannot be remedied only through corrective measures given the disadvantageous situation. Traditional factors limit the influence of modern factors such as skills, knowledge, competition and performance. Higher education in India fails to equip students to completely overcome the limits and constraints of the caste system that lead to several handicaps in social life as well as in higher education. Still, there is no viable alternative to higher education to this significant section of the Indian population – the scheduled castes – as a means to achieve social mobility in a closed society like India. Hence, it is pertinent also to understand and draw experiences of such supportive mechanisms like the Post Matric Scholarship scheme at the higher education level provided to such section(s) of Indian society.

Citation

Wankhede, G. (2012), "Accessing Higher Education, Affirmative Action and Structured Inequality: Indian Experience", Allen, W.R., Teranishi, R.T. and Bonous-Hammarth, M. (Ed.) As the World Turns: Implications of Global Shifts in Higher Education for Theory, Research and Practice (Advances in Education in Diverse Communities, Vol. 7), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 321-343. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-358X(2012)0000007017