Accessing higher education: the dilemma of schooling women,minorities, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in contemporary India

This article focusses on the growth of higher education within the framework of preferential treatment and supportive measures for the benefit of different social groups, namely, the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, minorities and women. It also reviews the educational policy discourse which assigns several functions to higher education. Some of these are: equity for the Scheduled Castes and Tribes; mainstreaming for the minorities, and equality for women. It demonstrates that the educational policy fails to integrate these functions which remain sectoral aims even at the conceptual level. Further, in the multi-cultural and multi-ethnic Indian society, the parametres of gender, caste, class and region are crucial in determining access to higher education. Again, gender becomes the all inclusive negative parameter conferring cumulative and competing disadvantages on women. Lastly, the educational policies and programmes are unable to encompass the complex social reality within a single framework and are, therefore, unable to bridge the gap between policy and practice.First published inHigher Education Reform in India, eds. Philip G. Altbach and Suma Chitnis (New Delhi: Sage Publication India Pvt. Ltd.).