The quota system
Related story
I am pleased by the news that the government has decided to provide Rs 5 million worth of scholarship to students from 59 disadvantaged indigenous groups of Nepal. This is a step in the right direction.
One Nepali saying goes, "The dog in the bag does not chase a deer." The dog can bark, but it cannot run. To enable the dog not only to bark but also to run after the deer, we must teach it how to run and how to follow a deer. The same applies to equality and inclusion as well. You have two ways to obtain equality. You could catch the fish and distribute them equally among your citizens. Or you can train your citizens equally to catch the aquatic animals and let them gather as many as their skills permit.
Programs that offer targeted scholarship, development and empowerment measures for the disadvantaged represent the first type of government intervention. They encourage merit, leading gradually to a relatively equal society in the long-run. Statesmen and development thinkers who have a longer term vision support this type of intervention.
Quotas in hiring, nomination, promotion, ticket distribution for political constituencies, etc constitute the second type. They water down merit and create a two-tiered society, making relative equality impossible to achieve. Politicians and opportunists support the second type because its gives them instant gratification and fits the election cycle.
I have heard a joke about two doctors. A patient arrived in an emergency room where two doctors were assigned. The patient asked one of the men there as to who the doctor was. The man answered, pointing to the other man, "If you are looking for a quota doctor, go to him. If you are looking for a real doctor, come to me."
In India, quota doctors have hard time finding a job and getting patients. My husband's experience corroborates that. When he was living in Banaras years ago, he told me, his roommate fell sick. His landlord advised him to take his friend to a doctor who had not studied under the scheduled caste or tribe quota. The quota doctors, he said, were no good. My husband followed his landlord's advice. After that, he began to check whether the landlord was right. He had no way to know which doctors were better, but the quota doctors had very few patients in their clinics whereas the non-quota doctors had their clinics brimming with patients.
I have my own little story to share. My son applied for admission to a medical school and took the entrance test. He scored around 128 points in the test; but he was not admitted because he came from the so-called "privileged" caste, whereas several students from other castes and groups with considerably less marks were taken in. One student with 80 points also got admission, because he was from a disadvantaged group.
Although the entrance test score alone does not determine overall ability of students, it can make a big difference, together with student's grades and commitment, a family role model, the family pressure to succeed, and competition with siblings and close relatives. If there is a serious mismatch between student's ability and academic program's requirement, the student may run into a host of problems.
This has been well established. Clarence Thomas, the African American US Supreme Court justice who benefited from affirmative action (quota) in which admission and recruitment standards are relaxed for the disadvantaged minorities, believes that it harms minority students by placing them in programs that are above their abilities. UCLA Law Professor Richard Sander found that mismatch between ability and program results in "higher attrition rates, lower pass rates on the bar, and problems in the job market." While the magnitude of impact of such mismatch is debatable, the impact is not. A Duke University study has found that the impact of such mismatch is greatest in STEM—Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
Despite all this, I support quota as a temporary measure—let us say, for 10 years at most—for inclusion of excluded groups, during which time merit-based inclusion could be gradually built up. However, a permanent quota, which only distorts the merit system and creates a two-tiered society, will be catastrophic. It will create two-tiered society, breed conflict, and promote non-optimal production, non-optimal productivity and non-optimal return on social investment.
For an ideal long-term outcome, we ought to empower the disadvantaged people with better inputs and better opportunities to acquire skills. This approach reduces inequality and ensures inclusion, and gives best return to the state on its investment. It also delivers the best outcome for the beneficiaries: they do not become victims of the mismatch and they will not be impugned as quota doctors or quota professionals.
It is in this context that I welcome the government's decision to provide Rs 5 million worth of scholarship to disadvantaged and excluded indigenous students. It is yet to be seen whether this scholarship money reaches the target group, is stolen away by others or remains confined to paper.
We should invest more in capacity building and empowerment of excluded groups through both general and targeted programs in education, skill development, health and other social services, so that these groups can compete with the better-off groups on equal footing. Scholarship for the bright disadvantaged students empowers people bottom up—from the input level. Competition on merit, the key to success, benefits the country and saves the disadvantaged from the ignominy of being viewed as sub-standard quota doctor, quota engineer or quota administrator.
I know such a policy would be unpopular with the leaders used to the parochial politics of poverty, identity, minority hurt, majority supremacy, discrimination and so on. These leaders fear that the empowered people would not come to them for favor with briefcases full of notes and boxes full of votes. That is why they have been fighting for their own empowerment rather than the empowerment of their voters. This is also the main reason the new constitution is going through a prolonged labor pain now.
Fakery does not bring real progress. It reminds me of a story of late King Birendra's visit to Jumla. To show its spectacular progress, the Agriculture Office reportedly flew big, fully blossomed cauliflowers from Nepalganj and planted them in the farms that were being inspected. The cauliflowers began to wilt before the king left.
The minority quota at the outcome level is the cauliflower from Nepalgunj planted in the Jumla farm—ornamental, ersatz. We must plant the seeds of cauliflower in Jumla and grow them there. In other words, we should go for the echt inclusion, not ersatz, to build a peaceful, equal and just Nepal.
The author is with the International Hotel Group in London
-1200x560-1774341373.webp)
