How fair is it for Delhi and Tamil Nadu to reserve 85% college seats for residents?

On Thursday, the Delhi Assembly passed a resolution seeking to reserve 85% of seats in 28 Delhi University-affiliated colleges that are funded by the state government for the city’s residents. Anyone who completes Class 12 from a Delhi school would be eligible.

Similarly, the Tamil Nadu government, through a June 22 order, reserved 85% seats in the state’s medical colleges for those who take the state board’s Class 12 exam.

The Aam Aadmi Party government in the Capital said its demand was reasonable, considering that these 28 colleges (out of over 60 that are affiliated to Delhi University) are fully or partially funded by the state. “We are not regionalists,” insisted Atishi Marlena, advisor to Delhi’s Education Minister Manish Sisodia. “Delhi’s taxpayers fund these colleges. Delhi University gets a large number of students from state boards but there is no entrance test or normalisation of marks before admission. This puts Delhi candidates [the majority of who take the difficult Central Board of Secondary Education’s Class 12 exam] at a disadvantage.”

Apart from the reservation move, the city government also plans to ask the Centre to amend the Delhi University Act, 1922 as it prohibits the setting up of any other affiliating university in the Capital – although it had made an exception for the technical education-focused Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University.

States are known to protect the interests of students who have graduated from their schools by setting aside seats for them in higher education. But they usually do so in state universities and most often in state-recognised technical education programmes. Mumbai University, for instance, does not have separate seats or different cut-offs – the minimum marks required for admission to a programme – for students from outside Maharashtra but reserves seats in its engineering colleges for students from the state. In Karnataka, college cut-offs are determined by state board results but some seats are kept vacant – not explicitly reserved – for central board students. In medical colleges, though, 25% seats are reserved for students from Karnataka.

But the developments in Delhi and Tamil Nadu are being considered particularly transgressive. In the Capital, the government is wrangling over reservation in colleges affiliated to a central university over which it has no control. Delhi University was established through an Act of Parliament and is funded by the University Grants Commission. And Tamil Nadu’s decision has prompted applicants from Central Board of Secondary Education schools to move the Madras High Court in protest.

DU unlikely to agree

Marlena believes the Delhi government’s proposal requires just a nod from Delhi University’s academic council and the Delhi University Court, the institution’s top authorities. But, as one of the deans said, “there is absolutely no chance” of either of these entities giving their approval. “These colleges are governed by the rules of the [higher education regulator] University Grants Commission, on pay, retirement age and every other service condition,” the dean said.

No statistics are available on the exact proportion of students from outside Delhi in these 28 colleges – of which 12 receive all of their funds from the city government while the rest get just 5%. Put together, the state spends about Rs 300 crores annually on these 28 institutions, said Marlena.

Abha Dev Habib, former member of Delhi University’s executive council, pointed out that “no reservation on the basis of domicile is possible in the 46 central universities”. She argued that the terms of agreement between these colleges and the university cannot be changed either.

But for Marlena, the math is simple. “Two lakh students complete Class 12 in Delhi each year,” she said. “Where will they go? We need to expand higher education but do not want to put more money into Delhi University. Either seats should be reserved or the Centre should let us start a state university to which colleges established by trusts can be affiliated. Even DU grew that way.”

She also blames the slow decline of state universities for driving applicants to Delhi University, which has around 54,000 seats but receives applications several times that number.

In Tamil Nadu

The case in Tamil Nadu is different. The state first resisted the introduction of the centralised National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for admission to medical and dental programmes, arguing that the Central Board of Secondary Education-based exam would harm the admission prospects of students from the state board. Then, as the results of this year’s exam were declared on June 23, the state reserved 85% seats for these students and ordered a separate merit list.

According to The Times of India, the central board students who have challenged this in court have argued that it is “discriminating [against] students solely on the basis of their school board”. The Madras High Court on Friday issued notices to a range of bodies linked to medical education but did not stay the order.

The state government’s rationale for issuing the order, according to the Press Trust of India, is that the majority of Class 12 graduates, over 4.2 lakh students, are from state board-affiliated schools while just 4,685 students wrote the central board’s Class 12 exam.

The Left-wing Students Federation of India, which had opposed the centralised test, “welcomed the decision as a temporary solution” but acknowledged there would be “procedural complications” in implementing it. The 69% reservation for backward castes, classes and tribes will have to be kept too. “Ultimately, the centralised test must go,” said its state president, Mariappan Veerapandi.

Education activist Prince Gajendra Babu agreed. “It is the failure of these private CBSE schools that their students could not do better at the national level even though NEET is based on their syllabus,” he argued. Although he does not support the 85% reservation, he said the current situation is yet more proof that the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test is unsuitable for assessing merit and restricts access and promotes coaching.

Other states worried

The decisions in Delhi and Tamil Nadu have school administrators in other states worried. Mansoor Ali Khan, who heads the central board-affiliated Delhi Public School in Bengaluru, is concerned that other states may also adopt such “populist measures”. He said reservation on the basis of domicile was unfair, at least in general education institutions, given how frequently some families move. “It is becoming increasingly common to have students join in the board years, Classes 10 and 12, which we never had before,” he said.

Although a state institution, Mumbai University issues one set of cut-offs and has no reservation for Maharashtra residents, reiterated SC Kedia of the Mumbai Unaided Schools Forum. “Mumbai is a cosmopolitan city, so there is no discrimination,” he added.

In West Bengal, Calcutta University colleges issued different cut-offs for different boards till three years ago, a practice that was dropped after they lost a court case.

However, both Karnataka and Maharashtra make an exception and reserve seats in technical education.

“In engineering, 25% seats are reserved for Maharashtra students,” said Kedia, adding that candidates who have completed Classes 10 and 12 in Maharashtra schools or whose parents have lived in the state for at least 15 years are eligible.

Ramesh Raju, who runs private medical and engineering colleges in Karnataka, said 25% seats are free and meant for candidates who have lived “in the state for seven years”. The centralisation of the entrance test has not changed that.