Hi Gabe I am unable to enter the big debate on the points raised about caste and affirmative action, by Jane Rodrigues for lack of time now. However, regarding your point below about "renowned universities being ordered to take more students from poor backgrounds", I believe that this is a questionable interpretation of the move by the Labour Government to diversify the university intake in the UK.
In brief--and I have to rush this a bit, higher education in the UK has always been for the better off by the better off and the characteristics of the 'A' level entry mode represent the perfect manifestation of this fact. The Government's position (and with which I agree) is that this particular exam mode that is used for university entry, excludes much natural talent that never makes it to university, let alone to the high status ones. In this scenario, the UK as a whole loses out in an increasingly globalised world where human talent and its use is the key to national prosperity. In America, to some extent they have cracked this kind of problem by having internationally available selection schemes (eg SATS) to identify bright students from anywhere and on the basis of high scores, Harvard and Yale, among others, will physically locate the potential talent and provide educational opportunites at their institutions and include programmes to compensate for where there are initial academic shortfalls among such students. Not withstanding the existence of the old boy/girl network, this is a much fairer system than 'A' level selection in the UK that, is excellent for some but not the many, and is heavily biased towards the middle classes who privately invest heavily in 'A' level exam preparation without regard for the true intellectual potential of candidates for university places. An American scholar, Ralph Turner, a long time ago, had written a brilliant short essay on the significant difference between the American and UK university systems, titled Sponsored and Contest Mobility ...which I am sure can be googled by anyone who may be interested. The UK government wants UK universities to do something similar to what America does but this is not that easy in a system steeped in privilege and tradition. The traditional universites are inclined to do what they have always done--work with the more priviledged in society. Therefore, they are being given more money if they seek the talent out there, (the potential Shakespeares, Einsteins etc) who could but don't make it because they are in the lower strata of society and what they get in less good schools cannot provide them the passage to university. The Government has introduced a carrot and stick approach so that those universites that do not diversify are penalised through reduced grants. For those unfamiliar with the UK system, there are no private universites here and all courses/programs are paid for, validated and monitored by Government agencies. Of course, time and resources would raise the standard of the lower class people at school level, but until then, more innovative measures are needed to identify, and draw into university level work, so much intellectual talent around that is currently being simply wasted. Cornel Gabe Menezes wrote: > Incidentally, it happens on similar basis here in > the U.K. as well when renowned Universities were ordered to take more students from poor back grounds. The problem is, you can take the horse to the trough but you can't make it drink.