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Something similar happened in the US where numbers of students in CS went up over time. However, academic fraud has not been as big of a problem as it is in Ind
by onetimeusename 6y ago
Something similar happened in the US where numbers of students in CS went up over time. However, academic fraud has not been as big of a problem as it is in India.
An Indian friend of mine said that IIT is good but hardly anyone can get in and the caste system dictates admissions policies anyway so many people try to get engineering degrees from schools with lax standards. The professors are completely unqualified, according to her, and people have to pay more to learn the material from off-campus tutors but not everyone can afford that.
I think this should be the focus is ending academic fraud rather than some of these other issues. That could do a lot of good. Here is a reference to a story I found that corroborates what I was told.[1]
[1]:https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/UGC-probe-finds-50-faculty-unqualified/articleshow/48766010.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/UGC-probe-f...
- andrewflnr 6y ago> ...and the caste system dictates admissions policies anyway Like, officially, in writing? Even if it's informal, as an American it blows my mind that that's still a thing.
- onetimeusename 6y agoYes. There is actually a whole Wikipedia entry[1] on it. The relevant portion: > For candidates in the general category, successful students must generally score within the top 0.25% or top 0.5% of all students to gain admission to the IITs, whereas SC/ST/OBC candidates must generally score within the top 2% of all students to gain admission to the IITs. > Currently, reservation of 15%, 7.5% and 27% seats are provided for candidates originating from the SC, ST and OBC communities respectively. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_policy_in_Indian_Institutes_of_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_policy_in_Indian_I...
- finnh 6y agoTo be clear, that's affirmative action for people in the lowest castes (not everyone knows what SC etc mean offhand).
- microtherion 6y agoTIL that "SC" is the caste formerly known as "untouchables". It does not seem unreasonable to institute some affirmative action for them.
- nsenifty 6y agoSC/ST were historically the most oppressed. However the OBC[1] designation is heavily diluted and is often handed out to previously well to do communities in exchange of votes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Backward_Class https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Backward_Class
- andi999 6y agoI was told (if I remember correctly) that discriminated castes get an advantage (or even a certain percentage of seats) at universities in India. I am surprised this could be considered mind blowing, isnt there also affirmative action for college admission in America?
- TheCoelacanth 6y agoUniversities aren't allowed to have racial quotas in the US. They are allowed have affirmative action that is implemented in a fuzzy non-numerical way, but they can't just say "we will admit X students of Y race".
- toast0 6y agoThey aren't allowed to have racial quotas anymore, but it was commonly done before the 2003 supreme court ruling that ended the practice.
- TheCoelacanth 6y agoRacial quotas haven't been allowed since 1978[1]. The 2003 case[2] was about a points-based system, not about racial quotas. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regents_of_the_Univ._of_Cal._v._Bakke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regents_of_the_Univ._of_Cal._v... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grutter_v._Bollinger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grutter_v._Bollinger
- smdz 6y agoIt is not the caste based discrimination like you might intuitively perceive. In history there was a caste system that led to systemic deprivation of education and opportunity to underprivileged castes. So India (few decades back) came up with a reservation system so that people belonging to those castes could get jobs/education/opportunities. In today's times it's scale is more like racism that you would find in most developed nations. However after achieving the basic purpose, the reservation system based on caste was never withdrawn. Lots of political parties invested into those vote banks. Nowadays, the situation is such that many people who get admissions based on the reservation policy are from acceptably well off educated families. There are many people who are relatively poor and financially underprivileged but belong to the upper caste and they cannot get any benefits.
- andrewflnr 6y agoAh, that is not what I assumed, and rather less surprising.
- 205guy 6y agoSounds like you're describing was what Americans call affirmative action ("a reservation system so that people belonging to those castes could get jobs/education/opportunities"). I am not knowledgeable about India's system, but I get the impression that like the one in the US, it is politically/culturally divisive and I would take any comment about it as opinion/preference rather than fact.
- ethbro 6y agoIt's factual that a policy exists or does not, however one feels about it.
- gautamdivgi 6y agoOfficially - yes. It's affirmative action. About 40% or more of the seats are reserved for students from a "lower caste".
- knolax 6y agoI mean it's literally the same thing as affirmative action.
- dmode 6y agoIn this case, the caste system based admission is equivalent to affirmative action in US universities
- YokoZar 6y agoWell, sort of. Explicit quotas used to be a thing in American universities until Bakke in 1978, and racial "points" systems were ended in 2003 with Grutter. Notably these Supreme Court decisions actively endorsed Affirmative action in general, they just implied you couldn't be too explicit about how you were using it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regents_of_the_Univ._of_Cal._v._Bakke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regents_of_the_Univ._of_Cal._v... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grutter_v._Bollinger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grutter_v._Bollinger
- int_19h 6y agoThe proportions would be different. Minorities in US are, well, minorities - but if Wikipedia is to be believed, the category that is targeted for affirmative action in India constitutes about 40% of the entire population.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoAre you really naive enough to think that American standards are global standards? You should really get out of the country more, read books by non-American authors, and most especially -- befriend non-Americans.
- chrononaut 6y agoThis is pretty harsh criticism. People perceive the world in the form that they experienced it through life. There's probably very few people in the world who are familiar with every culture and the nuances with it. You should encourage people to learn more, not attempt to make them feel ashamed that they didn't know it already.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago> you should encourage people to learn more I think you stopped reading after the first sentence because encouragement is exactly what I did. And I stand by the comment about naïveté.
- walshemj 6y agoYes there are laws about disadvantaged Castes I believe and caste discrimination goes on amongst communities outside India.
- sushid 6y agoIs it that surprising? We have the exact same system in the States. Affirmative Action exists today. The Ivies modified its acceptance criteria to "soft" discriminate against Jewish Americans in the 50s and 60s. There are arguments that this is indeed the case for Asian Americans today.
- babesh 6y agoThe soft discrimination actually happened much earlier than that. I think it was happening in the 20s and 30s already.
- barry-cotter 6y agoNo, it’s formal. Much as there are certain groups in the US that are held to lower standards in the US for purposes of admission to universities and some other opportunities so it is in India. There are reservations for Scheduled Castes and Backward Tribes. If you don’t come from them the grade you need to get into a good college will be higher, much as if you want to get into Harvard it’ll be harder if you’re Li or Nguyen than if you’re Jones or Ramirez.
- munk-a 6y agoHonestly the remnants of the caste system are hard to distinguish from "legacy" in America. If you're a Bush or a Kennedy you're going to have an easy time getting into school - in America it's a bit weirder even because buying your way in is generally considered legitimate and culturally approved.
- raverbashing 6y ago> Even if it's informal, as an American it blows my mind that that's still a thing. In past times (and by that I mean XX century - before WWII usually) anti-semitism was pretty harsh, and official. Even on university admissions in the US.
- esyir 6y agoI'll mention that from experience. IIT is a mixed bag. I've seen some really good people, but a lot of them were just terrible at coding as well.