Analysis On Affirmative Action In India Higher Education

The caste system is the main character of India society. Under this system, the low caste and untouchable have been suffering discrimination and oppression for a long time. After India’s independence, though the caste system has been abolished, its effect has deeply rooted in India society, so the reservation has also been included into the constitution. To further promote the development of country and protect the right of vulnerable groups to be educated and the promotion of social justice, India government has made a series of polices and plans. In Central Educational Institutions(Reservation in Admission) Act 2006, the proportion of reserved seats has been extended to 49.5% and reservation for the other backward classes has also been included. The affirmative action has been a hot topic and controversial highly since its start. By presenting the historical development of reservation policy, this study centered on Central Educational Institutions(Reservation in Admission) Act 2006. On the base of the reservation act, the paper analysis the policy effect and its debate in detail, and then put forward the evaluation.In this paper, the literature analysis and the case analysis method are the main research methods. This paper can be divided into five parts.The introduction part depicts the reason on this subject, the main core concept, research significance, research purpose and the research method. Nowadays, with the democratization of higher education, in order to promote the social condition of these low caste and tribes, the main step of reservation policy in higher education is reserving seats for SCs, STs and OBCs. However, the reservation policy has been a hot topic since its start, so the policy effect and influence is the main research question.The first part is the description of India reservation policy development, which is divided into four periods to analysis the reason of making this policy and relevant regulations respectively, which are period of policy exploration, period of policy launch, period of policy execution and period of policy debate.The second part analyses the background of making the central educational institutions(reservation in admission) act 2006 through three aspects, which is the necessity of the history development, the competition of political power and the trend of society.The third part introduce an important decision-- Central Educational Institutions(Reservation in Admission) Act 2006, which includes its main content, its implementation and its character. To promote the social condition of low caste and satisfy the need of development of whole country, this act extends the reservation targets to OBCs and also list the name of the main higher education institutes. The execution time can be decided according to different situation.The forth part analyses the effect of the central educational institutions(reservation in admission) act 2006 on student enrollment rate and academic performance in India higher education, then presents the debate about the reservation policy. The debate includes the reservation policy is in favor of social justice, democracy, harmony and the effectiveness of the policy.The last part is conclusion, which includes the rethinking on the reservation and the judgment on the reservation in admission of higher education.