Every Sunday, Surekha* joins a study group at a vihar (a Buddhist community space) in Nagpur in Maharashtra to prepare for applying to master’s programmes in Bengaluru and London. Along with more than 20 other students, she works on her group discussion, public speaking, English language, and debating skills. This self-driven group operates without a teacher. These students have fought hard to secure three hours of access to the vihar each Sunday, overcoming considerable opposition from residents. Most students, including Surekha, belong to Dalit/Buddhist families in northern Nagpur. Her seniors started this group after facing significant access- and skill-based challenges when trying to enter higher education. After securing access themselves, they built a space for students from their neighbourhood to do the same.
About 90 km away in Chandrapur district, Manish* travels 23 km daily from his village Khopadi to a study room in Chimur, to prepare for his university entrance exams. He works as a driver in the evenings to meet his expenses. Around 40 other students join him, travelling anywhere between seven and 20 km to use this free facility. Mukesh*, a public-school teacher, set up this library with seven others, starting a foundation to ensure better opportunities for marginalised students in the district and nearby villages. He persuaded locals to provide a space for students to prepare for exams and build soft and hard skills. He visits the library every weekend to give lectures and bring in guest speakers. He also posts opportunities in shared WhatsApp or Facebook groups and their Instagram page, and connects students with other resource persons better suited to provide guidance.
The vihar in Nagpur and the study room in Chimur are part of a wider ecosystem of identity- and community-based preparatory spaces that are quietly reshaping how marginalised students access higher education in India.
What are these preparatory spaces?
We encountered many preparatory spaces while exploring how students from diverse social backgrounds secure access to higher education. Our 10-month fieldwork, from December 2023 to September 2024, covered 23 such sites across Maharashtra (Mumbai, Pune, Phaltan, Nagpur, Chandrapur, Chimur, Bhandara, and Jiwati), Delhi, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu, in addition to online spaces. It involved interviews and focus group discussions with more than 45 stakeholders—student leaders, community organisers, and past graduates who return to lead these collectives—and 150 students who have used these resources.
Preparatory spaces, or extra-institutional spaces exist parallel to mainstream schooling and equip students with the necessary skills to gain admission to ‘reputable’ higher education institutions. Within this broader ecosystem of preparatory spaces, stratifications exist. More widely recognised preparatory spaces typically aim to facilitate access to prestigious institutions, often specialising in medicine or engineering, and are generally accessible to higher-income groups. A smaller subset of preparatory spaces, like the ones described above, emerges from community identities and a sense of belonging. These spaces specifically target disenfranchised students, employing community- and identity-based strategies to prepare them for higher education and advocate for more equitable experiences within it.
This element of advocacy is not a random or separate function that appears at a later stage. It is, in fact, built directly into the very nature of these spaces due to their foundational Ambedkarite ethos. Advocacy and point-of-entry preparation are two sides of the same coin. Thus, when shifting state policies or sudden changes in administrative criteria threaten student pathways (such as alterations to the state’s overseas scholarship criteria), these networks collectively raise their voices, recognising that resisting systemic barriers is an inseparable part of their everyday survival.
Why are they needed?
The existence of identity-based spaces is rooted in the challenges that students from marginalised communities face when mainstream and commercial preparatory spaces remain out of reach. As the mentors we spoke to emphasise, these spaces did not merely emerge as a reaction to expensive commercial coaching centres. They are a direct response to the deficits of the higher education system itself, which continues to trade in an informational delay and linguistic pressure that isolates students of regional medium institutions. Mainstream support spaces remain inaccessible because they are built around a singular, highly competitive template that ignores the structural fear of English, the physical fatigue of students already stretched thin, and the lack of a backup plan for the majority of the students who are routinely left out.
What draws students to these collectives is not just community identity but a shared experience of being excluded.
The students we interacted with also emphasised that the barriers extended beyond financial constraints. “Even if I could afford those coaching institutions, I won’t feel like I belong there. Once I am part of those spaces, I will still be marked based on my caste identity. People are going to ask, ‘Are you applying under the SC, ST, or OBC category?’ And once you respond…you will be labelled.”
For many students, simply accessing a supportive space requires immense physical effort. The gruelling distance is not viewed as a temporary hardship but rather an ‘accepted phenomenon’ for there is ‘no option’. When trying to access formal higher education, these students are frequently judged to be ‘not ready’ based on their background, language, or lack of privilege, rather than on actual metrics.
One student from a regional medium background shared the silent barrier it creates. “My mother tongue is Marathi, but I don’t talk in the Marathi (dialect) that is spoken in Pune. So, I felt like an outsider…my Marathi would be pointed out to indicate that I come from a village. Due to this, we cannot openly speak [due to the fear] that our language may be judged.”
Exclusion here is not announced through an explicit rejection letter. It is the absence of comfort that builds an internalised inferiority complex, signalling to students that they do not possess the necessary cultural capital to belong.
What draws students to these collectives is not just community identity but a shared experience of being excluded, both from opportunities and from spaces where their backgrounds are understood rather than questioned.
Identity and belonging as the foundation
An identity-based preparatory space offers recognition and belonging where students do not have to explain or justify their struggles to be understood. “Here, nobody is going to mark me. Nobody is going to label me as this or that,” notes a student. Much of the practical information and support that students rely on flows through these networks, passed down from those who have navigated the same path before them. These networks recognise the lived experience of students, validating the logic of memory and shared struggle that flows across these spaces.
The networks offer a distinct layer of belonging, addressing disenfranchisement by acknowledging both the historical context and the educational content that perpetuates it. They foster a sense of community that is crucial for marginalised students.
In many cases, such spaces also connect students with alumni networks, professionals, and other resources that provide guidance and opportunities, helping students see their own futures more concretely. Mentors from similar backgrounds who have successfully navigated the higher education system give students a clearer vision of their own potential futures. Advice and encouragement from mentors help students navigate the challenges of higher education and reinforce their aspirations.
In almost all the sites we surveyed, students were also taught about the socio-economic, cultural, and political contexts that have shaped the existing disparity in access to higher education. Ambedkarite thought provides a definitive structure in this otherwise fluid and informal space. Mentors we spoke to often explain their involvement by stating, “We give back because that is Ambedkarite.”
Rather than remaining a static ideology, this thought functions as a practical mandate to pass what they have gained back to those still finding their way in. It directly shapes how these spaces adapt to physical and cultural hurdles. For example, in one space we visited, set in a conservative rural area where mixed gender interactions present a barrier to women’s education, mentors manually reconfigured their study spaces to create separate study areas for women. They have also built a girls’ leadership programme to ensure women have room to articulate their challenges.
Mentors are shared across different spaces, students move between preparatory spaces, and former students return to mentor or participate in one- or two-day camps.
The support that students receive across these collectives spans far more than academics. The granularity of support they receive is remarkable. It includes offering instructions on filling an online form or writing a Statement of Purpose; providing housing when students travel to another city for the admissions process; helping them build networks to navigate campus life; and paying an entrance exam fee or for internet data packs so students can access online resources.
One of the spaces we visited provides free education and has also negotiated with accommodation providers to waive the large advance deposit and charge only monthly rent. They have also partnered with a nearby college mess for subsidised meals and with a bakery to provide breakfast for students.
Students are also supported in different ways, often shaped by how mentors and stakeholders understand marginalisation, emancipation, and social mobility. Some spaces focus on institutional partnerships, others leverage their online presence and networks, and some prioritise employment pathways.
The practice we observed in the field relies heavily on giving back. Mentors and learners alike attribute this ethos to Buddhist and Ambedkarite thought. More than an ideological position, this ethic is what keeps many of these spaces running. This manifests in concrete ways: Mentors are shared across different spaces, students move between preparatory spaces, and former students return to mentor or participate in one- or two-day camps.
Instead of operating as competitive, isolated spaces, they form collaborative networks, actively directing students toward whichever space best suits their needs. Some resource persons also move between different locations to provide interconnected support.
The need for recognition and support
The formalised system of preparatory spaces often implies a singular approach to preparation, primarily focused on exams such as NEET, IIT-JEE, and UPSC. However, the strategies adopted by mentors and stakeholders in identity-based preparatory spaces reveal multiple methods of preparation that consider broader social mobility contexts. The notion of social mobility itself has evolved. Individuals who previously focused on government exams are now considering higher education opportunities. Those who want to get into higher education can also choose to build work experience first. Mentors in these spaces understand and navigate this range.
Policymakers need to move away from viewing higher education as an isolated space and instead see it as a broader trajectory aligned with social mobility. These preparatory spaces are a part of this upward arc for marginalised students. It is also critical to recognise why students seek out spaces where they do not have to explain their marginality and what that says about how unwelcoming formal institutions remain.
Our fieldwork points to a critical gap—formal systems concentrate entirely on the bottleneck at the point of entry but remain structurally ignorant of the post-entry isolation and linguistic friction that students experience once inside institutions. What these preparatory spaces teach us is a certain type of day-to-day practice that can eventually be fit into a larger institutional policy. A meaningful change in state approach would mean moving away from a top-down model (like tuition waivers) towards institutionalising supportive practices such as building localised language support structures that allow for multilingual understanding and fostering decentralised, peer-led student cohorts.
Identity-based preparatory spaces are often overlooked despite their role in bringing more students from the grassroots into higher education. The informal mode of operation that these collectives adhere to is a strategic choice. It is a way of remaining accessible to the students that formalised structures routinely exclude. Many of the spaces we visited still struggle to secure adequate resources. Recognising them within policy frameworks, without formalising them into irrelevance, is itself a policy challenge.
*Names changed to maintain confidentiality
The research reported in the article was made possible (in part) by a grant from the Spencer Foundation (Ref number #202300204). The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Spencer Foundation.
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Know more
- Read this article on the barriers that limit marginalised students’ access to scholarships.
- Learn more about the overt and covert forms of caste-based discrimination in educational settings.
