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Indian School

What pressure! As if the academic burdens were not enough to cope with, the pupils at these two schools have caste pressures to live with too. They have to endure comments and judgement, from their peers as well as society.

The contentious 'quota' system of reservations is flawed. Students from lower castes are allocated places as part of a quota, but academic requirements are compromised and therefore there’s no parity. The higher caste pupils are then pushed to achieve improbable entry marks, to compensate for the lack of places available to them through the reservations system. This causes resentment and puts the heads and schools in a difficult position.

pro rata they’re actually overachieving

To counter this, you could argue that the pupils from lower castes have started from a lower baseline, both socially and economically, so they’re academically compromised and have to play 'catch up' all their academic lives. So pro rata they’re actually overachieving.

In the UK when pupils often win places to private schools and gain scholarships there’s usually a standard academic test that they’ve passed. No compromise is made for class, or social or financial standing. You could argue that disadvantaged pupils in the UK are still relatively enabled, compared to their Indian counterparts who’ve a far greater amount of catching up to do.

Wherever the reality lies, does the caste system resonate as a distorted mirror of the class system in the UK? It’d be interesting to find out.

See also:

• Can there ever be a classless society?
• Why is schooling failing in the 'new' India?

About the author

Billy Khokhar is an assistant director with the Open University, and an expert on cultural awareness and diversity. Billy used to be a teacher, and is interested in how education in India compares and contrasts with the UK.