Andhra Pradesh ends 15% quota in higher education institutions for non-locals
Monday's order, signed by secretary (higher education) Kona Sasidhar, implies that all seats in higher education and technical education colleges would be effectively reserved for students from Andhra Pradesh.
HT has reviewed the order.
The 15% reservation for non-locals was made under Section 95 of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act, 2014, that required government and private institutions of higher education in the state to admit local and non-local students in the ratio of 85:15 for a period of 10 years from June 2014.
The change in policy was made after the AP State Council of Higher Education reported that the government should protect the interests of the state's students seeking admission to various undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD courses in engineering, technology, pharmacy, architecture, Pharm D, Business Administration, Computer Applications, Law, Education and Physical Education colleges.
Accordingly, the government has decided to amend the admission rules of educational institutions in the state, between Andhra University (AU) and Sri Venkateshwara University (SVU).
Students of Andhra University region will be treated as locals in that area and 85% of the seats would be reserved for them. The remaining 15% of the seats would be treated as non-local category and students from Sri Venkateshwara University region could compete for this 15% quota.
The same formula would apply to students of Sri Venkateshwara University region, who would get 85% quota and the remaining 15% seats in this region would be thrown open from Andhra University region students.
'Earlier, Osmania University (OU) was also included for admissions, but it has now been removed from AP's purview. So, from now on, admissions will be made based only on AU and SVU regions, making the entire 100% quota available only to AP students,' Sasidhar said.
For determining the local candidate status, the order said students who studied in institutions in the erstwhile combined districts of Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, East Godavari, West Godavari, Krishna, Guntur, and Prakasam would be considered locals for AU region. Similarly, students who studied in the districts of Anantapur, Kurnool, Chittoor, Kadapa, and Nellore would be considered as locals in the SVU region.
The order said a candidate for admission shall be regarded as a local candidate in relation to a local area, if he has studied in an educational Institution or educational Institutions in such local area for a period of not less than four consecutive academic years. Alternatively, the candidate should have resided in the local area for a period of not less than four years immediately preceding the date of commencement of the relevant qualifying examination.
Besides the AU and the SVU regions, the state government has also announced a few state-wide universities and institutions, in which students from both the regions are eligible to apply. They are: Sri Padmavathi Mahila Viswa Vidyalayam (SPMVV), Tirupati, Dravidian University (DU), Kuppam, Dr. Abdul Haq Urdu University (AHUU)-Kurnool, Dr YSR Architecture & Fine Arts University, Kadapa, Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies and Silver Jubilee Government College of Cluster University.
In these universities, admissions to 85% of available seats shall be reserved in favour of local candidates of Andhra University and Sri Ven. kateswara University regions in the ratio of 65.62% and 34.38% respectively. The remaining 15% seats shall be open to students from both regions on the basis of their score.
Andhra Pradesh's move comes months after the Telangana government on February 27 issued similar orders, scrapping 15% non-local quota in the colleges. Accordingly, 85% of seats of Osmania University (OU) Area will be reserved for local candidates, 5% for Telangana natives who have lived outside the state for at least 10 years, and the remaining 10% for specific categories, including children and spouses of Telangana government employees, central government employees serving in Telangana and children of people working in state-recognised institutions.
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And one of the things Cambodian kings started doing was trying to get the same kind of vassalage or protection from some of the European powers that were mucking around in Southeast Asia. For instance, they approached Napoleon.' The French naturalist, Henri Mouhot, entered Cambodia through Kampot in June 1859. Mouhot found Cambodia's condition to be deplorable. The population, he noted, had been seriously reduced due to ongoing wars. Among the products he listed (tobacco, pepper, sugar, coffee, silk, and cotton), Mouhot was most interested in the cotton crop, argues academic Margaret Slocomb in An Economic History of Cambodia in the Twentieth Century (2010). This, according to Slocomb, 'might have supplemented French needs should the American Civil War interrupt trans-Atlantic trade.' Cambodian forests and the mountains containing gold, lead, copper, and iron also caught his attention. In 1860, during Mouhot's travels in the region, the Khmer king died. In the fight for succession, Siam took advantage and Cambodia succumbed once more. 'The head of the Catholic mission in Cambodia, Bishop Miche, urged French intervention to restore order,' says Slocomb. The French, however, were more interested in securing access to the Mekong, which would allow entry into southwest China. The French expedition for the Mekong set out from Saigon in June 1866 to find a route to the Chinese province of Yunnan. However, this would prove disappointing. Slocomb notes that 'The French ambition of 'establishing a dominion in the eastern peninsula of Asia that would go far to rival in wealth and power the empire which the British have founded in Hindustan' was dashed by the findings of the commission. 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Using both threats and incentives, the French representative persuaded the king to bring peace. The king did the needful, and French administrators temporarily vested him with powers. For the next two decades, the French remained helpless. With the death of Norodom in 1904, however, they became hopeful. Au noted in her interview that the ascension of his half-brother Sisowath, chosen by the French, increased colonial involvement in Khmer society. It was during the Sisowath years (1904-27) and those of his son Monivong (1927-41) that the French economic and political reach into the Cambodian countryside grew rapidly. By 1884, France had claimed the lower Mekong Delta. By 1893, it had obtained control of Laos, central Vietnam, and northern Vietnam, and proclaimed the five 'states' of Annam, Cambodia, Cochinchina, Laos, and Tonkin as French Indochina. The résident supérieur du Cambodge (RSC) governed from the new capital city of Phnom Penh. Cambodia was further divided into several districts, each administered by a French representative, the district résident. 'Perhaps the most significant administrative reform of the Protectorate was the creation of the commune, khum…to form the administrative link between the moral law of the village with its selected chief… and the bureaucratic commands of the chauvay srok, the district chief,' says Slocomb. France was also to represent the country in its international affairs and advise on domestic policies, but domestic governance was to remain a native matter. 'In reality, the colonial government quickly encroached on all fronts in Cambodia: domestic, international, economic, and administrative,' concludes Au. The disputed border between Thailand and Cambodia was formally demarcated by the French in 1904. Charnvit Kasetsiri, Pou Sothirak, and Pavin Chachavalpongpun, in their jointly edited book, Preah Vihear: A Guide to the Thai-Cambodian Conflict and Its Solutions (2013), write: 'The force of colonial politics pressured Siam [Thailand] to conclude a treaty with France in 1907.' Consequently, Siam ceded the Cambodian territories of Battambang, Sisophon, and Siem Reap to the French. 'Generally speaking,' reckons Slocomb, 'the struggle for independence was not a widespread or mass movement.' King Norodom Sihanouk claimed that it was a series of diplomatic measures that won political and military independence for Cambodia in November 1953. According to the Constitution, 'Cambodia is a Kingdom with a King who shall rule according to the Constitution and to the principles of liberal democracy and pluralism. The Kingdom of Cambodia shall be independent, sovereign, peaceful, permanently neutral and non-aligned.' Scholars opine that French rule in Indochina suffered from inconsistencies. While the French Protectorate had a major impact on the founding institutions of modern Cambodia, 'this impact stopped short of the mass of the people, the villagers who had little contact with the French and who went out of their way to avoid them,' notes Slocomb. They regarded the French as oppressive tax-gatherers and threats to their culture. While dykes were dug, maps drawn, railroads built, and ports opened, the Protectorate failed in building a connection with the masses in healthcare services, agriculture, and industry. In agriculture, the vast majority was still engaged in subsistence rice cultivation; Industry also lagged far behind agriculture. Outside urban areas, the French colonial government did not effectively improve nutrition, ensure clean water, or educate the masses. Slocomb writes, 'French officials like Paul Collard were captivated by the charm of rural Cambodian life and seemed reluctant to affect it in any fundamental way'. 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