Kerala 2005 - of Planning Commission

CHAPTER 7
RECKONING CAUTION: EDUCATED UNEMPLOYMENT AND GENDER UNFREEDOM
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Box 7.1: Social Justice Reassured
The three-member Justice K. K. Narendran Commission appointed in February 2000 by the former Communistled
government submitted its Report in November 2001. It extensively examined the question of protection
of reservation rights of backward communities in terms of representation in public services and found that all
backward communities have not received adequate representation. The Commission therefore, recommended
that the Government should take necessary steps to rectify this anomaly. The Commission also recommended
educational advancement of the communities which have experienced shortfalls in the supply of candidature for
government jobs.
The State Government has resolved the conundrum of loss of reservation rights of backward communities in public
service at its recent Cabinet meeting, by deciding to make necessary amendments to the KSSSR to ensure that not
even a single job reserved for a backward community is lost to it on any account. For this purpose, amendments to
existing rules would be enacted to include in supplementary lists five times the reservation quota of vacancies for each
specific backward community. In cases in which eligible candidates are not found in any community for the number
of vacancies reserved for it, such vacancies would be filled through direct recruitment on the basis of notifications
made specifically for the purpose. In furtherance of these objectives, 20 per cent of seats would be reserved in
degree and post-graduate courses in colleges and universities for backward community candidates. Reservation of ten
per cent of the seats would be made also for candidates of forward communities who belong to households below
the poverty line.
It is interesting to note that in his reaction to the Cabinet’s announcement, Justice Narendran stated that while the
measures announced will help minimise the deficiency at least in the future, the government was silent on one
important aspect – the loss of Backward Class posts due to non-application of a ‘fundamental aspect of reservation’,
that merit seats should not be counted against reserved posts (The Hindu, January 27, 2006).
rise above the secondary school level. Specialised
educational qualifications further enhance the prospect
of employment. Besides, the educated in Kerala seem
to aspire for ‘jobs’ denoted by regularity, better work
conditions and social security rather than ‘work’ alone.
Earlier surveys in 1989 as well as in 1973-74 (Mukherjee
and Isaac, 1994 and CDS-UN, 1975) revealed that the
educated were prepared to wait for ‘jobs’. Significantly,
the 2003 survey found that the majority of the educated
labour force in Kerala belongs to the young age group
of 15 to 34 years (58 per cent for males and 68 per
cent for females). The fact that the younger generation
of women has a higher educational attainment than
younger men calls for special mention here.
However, the very high aggregate literacy levels in the
State have tended to obscure two important trends.
They are (a) the only marginally higher (than all-India)
proportion of ‘graduate and above’ category among
both men and women in Kerala as discussed elsewhere
in the Report; and (b) the gender differentiated pattern
of higher education within the State as it has evolved
over time. Analysis of data from the Census reveals
that gender disparity in education is extremely low in
class X and has even been reversed to some extent at
the pre-university and non-technical diploma levels.
Besides, currently women far exceed men in graduate
and postgraduate education in arts and science courses
as well as in nursing and teachers training. 3 While
there continues to be a significant gender gap in the
more job-oriented professional courses, it has declined
consistently between 1971 and 1991; women formed
a little over one-third of the students enrolled in
engineering colleges in the State (Eapen and Kodoth,
2003). More generally, girls have continued to trail boys
in technical education; and interestingly, the worker
sex ratios vary considerably between trades. In the
job-oriented lower technical educational institutions
between 1997-98 and 2000-01, the intake of girls was
below 10 per cent in technical schools and between
13 and 22 per cent in two-year courses of ITIs/ITCs. In a
striking contrast, there was a preponderance of women
in some of the one-year courses of the ITIs and ITCs
– stenography, dress-making, cutting and tailoring,
3 About two-thirds of the students enrolled in graduate courses were girls and almost three-fourths in post-graduate courses (GOK, 2001).