Reservation & the question of Independence
All Political Parties are up in arms, chiding the Supreme court for its ruling on this issue. Though this is not the first time that the political spectrum has risen against the Supreme Court.. this problem has some nuances. The Supreme court seems to have taken a position with only "independence" of private institutions taken into consideration. A clarification from the center, assuring pple that a new legislation is on the offing has calmed down things a little. Reservation in educational institutions is necessary as that is the only way to give oppurtunities to the many who deserve it. (Do u go on with private companies too??.. that is a bigger issue.. ) My motive here is to highlight two issues...
Though the court asked for some regulation from the govt to ensure that 'merit' and not money wins the game.. this is unlikely to work. Atleast in TN, the business of govt regulating admission fees, insistence on admission tests etc. has turned into a big joke. To most of these managements, running colleges has become an instrument of money making and they go to any limits to achieve this. Even if you ask the student to pay the entire expenses.. there is no way that the amount could spiral to the exorbitant rates that these managements charge. (Last heard... a medical seat was sold for 20 lakh in a popular college and eng seats go for 2-7 lakhs) Even assuming that the reservation bill gets passed, regulating (read as 'driving sense into') the managements of these colleges would remain a big problem.
The other is with the question of how you look at 'merit'. This is tricky. The few who get into good colleges (say IITs).. do not do so because of sheer ability. The fact that we had parents who could afford a city life/costly coaching classes are greater factors. I don't see anybody denying this. Though this is far from a equal platform, the IITs stick to this method as they can afford to tailor their programmes to meet the needs of students who already have a good exposure to the fundamentals. Lack of access to good teachers/books makes a student from rural background disadvantaged. The students who get through the reservations may find it tough competing with pple from more affluent backgrounds. At the level of a college, it is probably very tough to bridge this gap. Though it is important to stick to some reservations at these levels... this is no solution. Upgrading facilities and quality at much lower levels of education(where the govt. dominates in terms of reach) is the only permanant way out. Reservations at higher levels are only temperory solutions, but very important nevertheless.
2 Comments:
I couldn't agree more. But how can we convince poorly paid teachers to take up assignments in remote areas when they get plum jobs in cities which are much better paying?
Should the initiative should be from the teachers themselves? To an extent, yes. But the government must do something to accelerate the availability of quality education to the needy at the earliest, as education is probably the only main means of removing evils in society.
Improving the govt's schools in the rural areas is surely a HUGE task. But I think the govt could arguably stop work (on preference) on any other area for this. We don't need nukes..we need class rooms with roofs and libraries with books. We still spend very little(as a fraction of gdp) on primary education. We could easily cut down on our defense expenditure a little and pool much more resources into primary education.
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