Government School Students as ‘Socially and Educationally Backward’: Towards Fair Equality of Opportunity and Adequacy in Education in India

Ralwsian fair equality of opportunity encompasses in it the difference principle, the principle of redress, fair background and norm of priority. The paper studies the application of these principles keeping in view the recent development of State governments declaring government school students to be ‘socially and educationally backward’ class and providing them reservation in higher education. The enactment of these legislations and upholding of constitutionality of by the Madras High Court, shows that the difference principles is adopted in partiality, the remaining principles in Rawlsian notion of equality are not given sufficient attention. Similarly, adequacy notion of equality which demands allocation of resources to bring each student to the threshold of higher education or vocation is ignored. In these areas, the Indian educational jurisprudence and the allied legislations do not offer true capabilities or sufficiency to the child beyond elementary education. The paper voices the need to have a central legislation on the rights of the pupils in secondary and upper secondary education, to bridge this gap and have a holistic approach to human development bringing each child to the gate of higher education not only through ‘reservation’ but also through education law and policies.