Institutional reservation to sabotage reservation in medical and engineering: Protests in backward-Muslim communities

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Protests are brewing among backward and Muslim communities over the government's unwillingness to back down from its move on sabotaging floating reservations, which will lead to loss of over 700 seats in state medical and engineering admissions. This will also result in the loss of about 100 seats to the general reservations.

Floating reservation is a system that enables a student who is eligible for admission on merit and reservation in medical and engineering admissions to transfer to a college where a merit seat is available so that that reserved seat is allotted to another eligible student from the same community. Floating reservation was introduced in the state 20 years ago on the recommendation of a legislative committee to avoid loss of reservation of backward-Muslim sections in professional courses. In 2023, 174 candidates for MBBS and 573 candidates for engineering got admission in reserved seats in the government sector through this.

The letter of the Principal Secretary of Higher Education to the State Entrance Commissioner suggesting that the government has decided to stop the current floating reservation in engineering colleges from the coming academic year and the new prospectus should be amended to implement institutional-level reservation is what created the controversy. The move is to implement this once the government issues an order. If institution-level reservation happens, seat changing at college-level reservations cannot happen anymore.

Chief Minister sought report

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan sought an inquiry report from the Higher Education Department on the floating reservation sabotage issue. The Chief Minister's intervention came after the Kerala Kaumudi news that the backward and Muslim communities would lose more than seven hundred medical and engineering reservation seats if the floating reservation was stopped. In 2019, the Chief Minister intervened and stopped the reservation sabotage move by the officer lobby after the then-higher education minister noticed it.

Those who got seats through floating reservation in 2023-

Reserved category - MBBS - engineering

Ezhava - 55 - 192

Muslim - 53 - 192

Backwards Hindu - 19 - 55

General category - 16 - 79

Latin Christian - 16 - 9

Vishwakarma - 11 - 32

Backwards Christian - 3 - 9

SC - 1 - 1

Dheevara - 0 - 1