Reservation-category Indian faculty match general category peers in teaching, research despite fewer PhDs: Study

Faculty recruited under India’s reservation policies have, on average, lower academic qualifications, less experience, and fewer senior positions than their general-category counterparts, but this does not translate into poorer teaching or research performance, according to a new study on faculty at engineering colleges, including the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).

The study examined whether faculty recruited under caste-based reservation policies differ from general-category faculty in teaching, research, and other academic responsibilities. It found that students taught by reservation-category faculty performed marginally better in their immediate course examinations, scoring an average of 1.44 percentile points higher.

The study also found no meaningful differences in longer-term academic outcomes, including standardised test scores, attendance, dropout rates, and graduation rates.

Titled ‘Affirmative Action, Faculty Productivity and Caste Interactions: Evidence from Engineering Colleges in India’, the study is authored by four researchers: Robert W. Fairlie of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Saurabh Khanna of the University of Amsterdam; Prashant Loyalka of Stanford University; and Gagandeep S. Sachdeva of the University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz).

The authors said further research was needed to examine the findings in other settings. The paper is a working paper from NBER, a US-based non-profit organisation that conducts and publishes economic research, circulated for discussion and has not been peer-reviewed by the organisation.

The findings come against the ongoing debate over caste representation and discrimination in premier institutions like IITs. As HT reported in June, 4,804 of the 12,498 sanctioned teaching posts across the 23 IITs were vacant. Only nine IITs provided caste-category-wise vacancy data.

Of the 1,501 vacancies reported by these institutions, 888 were in the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Other Backward Classes categories combined.

Details on the study

The study was released as a working paper in October by the NBER and is also listed as forthcoming in the ‘Journal of Political Economy: Microeconomics,’ a US-based journal published by the University of Chicago Press.

The researchers examined data from 50 engineering and technology colleges across India, covering 2,710 faculty members and 20,239 students. The sample included computer science and electrical engineering departments.

Eight elite institutions were randomly selected from among IITs, National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) and other institutions ranked among the top 100 in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF). The remaining 42 colleges were selected from non-elite institutions, with their selection weighted by size.

The data were collected in two phases — October to December 2017 and January to March 2019 — as part of a larger project funded by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), India’s technical education regulator. The researchers reported response rates of about 95% for both baseline and endline surveys.

A key part of the study involved randomly assigning students to faculty members in 12 colleges. This allowed researchers to compare the academic performance of students taught by faculty from reservation and general categories, reducing the possibility that differences in student characteristics or faculty selection could explain the results.

The researchers also noted that the colleges used standardised course content and centrally graded end-semester examinations, making comparisons across faculty members more reliable.

Teaching outcomes of reserved and general-category faculty

The study found clear differences in the academic profiles and seniority of faculty members.

About 14% of reservation-category faculty members held a PhD, compared with 21% of general-category faculty. The share with a master's degree as their highest qualification was 64% among reservation-category faculty and 58% among general-category faculty.

Reservation-category faculty were also more likely to be assistant professors — 80%, against 74% among general-category faculty. Only 3% were professors, compared with 8% of general-category faculty.

Their average teaching experience was 8.91 years, against 10.06 years for general-category faculty.

The researchers, however, found that these differences did not correspond to lower classroom performance. As the paper puts it, “These lower observable qualifications do not translate into lower quality teaching”.

In the random-assignment analysis, students taught by reservation-category faculty scored 1.44 percentile points higher in course examinations. The result remained broadly similar after researchers accounted for differences in faculty experience, rank, qualifications and gender.

“We find that reservation category faculty actually teach slightly better than general category faculty as measured by course grades; students taught by reservation category faculty have a higher percentile rank for a given course, with the magnitude of difference varying between 1.3 to 1.5 percentile points,” the researchers said.

The study found “no meaningful difference” between students taught by reservation-category and general-category faculty in standardised tests conducted after two and four years, attendance, dropout rates, graduation or plans to pursue postgraduate studies.

It also examined whether students performed better when taught by faculty members from their own caste category — a possible “teacher-like-me” effect. The researchers found no evidence of a consistent advantage for students taught by faculty from their own social group.

The study found that “even in the face of resentment and possible discrimination, general category students obtain slightly better grades (in absolute terms) in classrooms taught by reservation category faculty than general category faculty.”

Research output and administrative work

The researchers also compared faculty members' research productivity and administrative responsibilities. They found no statistically significant differences between reservation-category and general-category faculty in research funding, publications or the likelihood of holding administrative positions.

Only about 13% of faculty members had received research funding during the two-year period examined. Around 10% had received government funding, and 3% had received private funding, while approximately 28% held administrative positions.

The differences between the two faculty groups were described as “small in magnitude and not statistically different from zero”.