Positively Discriminating?!

The topic was positive discrimination which technically is the preferential treatment of certain disadvantaged groups of people. There is a fine line of difference between positive action (non-selective) and positive discrimination (exclusive) but for the sake of making things more comprehensible and less complex, I shall set those differences aside and just focus on ‘preferential treatment of a group of disadvantaged people’.

To cut to the chase, the major argument is vis-à-vis entry to university. Must universities consider the ethnicity and race of their applicants for the sake of assessing whether these groups of people might be at a disadvantage at attaining certain foundational elements in their educational life? Are they to consider the deficiencies or discrimination these groups of people might have suffered in the past? Are they to consider the lack of educational support these people might have succumbed to?

The system set by the University Of Bristol and even the School Of Medicine in Cardiff seem to be in coherence with my proposed question. University of Bristol looks at the status of the school by which their applicants come from. A substantially lower grade is required from those that come from State owned schools as opposed to those from public schools or independent schools. The School Of Medicine here on the other hand places a lower pre requisite for Welsh students under the basis that these students will be serving their local NHS. In other words, not so much attention is given to the acquisition of merits and grades and more so detail is placed upon the societal status of an individual.

This does seem very unfair to the majority of society but the reasoning behind such a system is to promote the minority, to better their stand in society and to provide them with an adequate amount of assuage so as to enable them to attain an equal opportunity; when intending to pursue a career or a path in life. With regards to the article entitled ‘A case for Positive Discrimination’ by B. Parekh (who proposes positive discrimination for the betterment of society and diversity in the education sector), he speaks about the role model methodology, whereby the establishment of people from a certain minority group as pioneers in a certain field of work will only serve as a catalyst to ensure that more members of that minority group take the opportunity to better their lives.

But I nonetheless think the relatively crude approach to reducing pre requisites to minority races is not only futile but is at its crux no different from direct discrimination. I for one think that the government should solve the problem before it becomes a bigger problem. Instead of piecing up legislations to allow for positive discrimination, I think the government should invest money and time in creating a more conducive educational environment for minorities from the very beginning. Why resort to ‘grade’ and ‘factor’ manipulations when all that effort can be spent in creating more reliable and efficient state owned schools?

The reasoning that has led me to this conclusion is that the effort of a person from the majority cannot be weighed. It’s easy to argue that the average white person or someone from an independent school might have more access to books and other educational material but no argument can be made to say that the lack of effort by these people has granted them great results in their exams. These people (aside from the educational material) got their straight A’s from a substantial amount of effort and it would be unfair to abnegate them simply because they belong to a certain “advantageous” group.

So this brings me to my point that the government should look into the state of affairs faced by the minorities. I believe that the easy way is no way. Everyone should invest the relevant and necessary effort in trying to achieve their goals, thus in providing the relevant study and educational material to these minority groups, we are thus creating a more ‘equal opportunity’ field for individuals. Analogically speaking, everyone should START a race from the same position; there is no point in placing a standard position in the MIDDLE of the race track.