Are reservations justified?
Normally, I don’t blog about anything related to Politics. But, off late, some policies being considered by the current Manmohan Singh’s government has really pissed me off.
Quotas in IITs and IIMs
Indian government is trying to bring in quota of 27% in all higher-education institutes for people who belong to backward castes. That will increase the overall quota percentage to 49.5% (if you also take into account the already exisiting 22.5% seat reservations for SC/STs).
As a result, meritous students will find it increasingly difficult to get into prestigious intitutes of their choice. WTF? I always feel that their should not be any quotas or reservations of any kind anywhere. Merit should be the only criteria.
If you really want to give people from backward castes/SCs/STs an oppurtunity to grow, you should reform the education at the primary sector first. Make primary education compulsory, and if pprovide it free of cost to all these people. Let them learn. Let them grow. And, then if they have the capability, they will anyway compete with the best in the field.
By giving reservations, not only is the government depriving thousands of people from getting the kind of education they deserve, it is also lowering the standards of the intitutes.
IIMs and IITs are mega-brands, and they are mega-brands simply because they follow a very, very stringent process for admissions in form of JEE and CAT. If a person A has lower ability than B, but still gets through (and B doesn’t) just because he belongs to so and so social group, it will only result in brand dilution of the institutes. Remember, it takes years to build a brand, but a foolish decision like this will sink this very brand in no time.
Moreover, as my personal experience goes, normally its the children of ‘privledged’ families belonging to these so called backward-castes/SCs/STs get admissions into these insitutes. So, IMO, the government should first carefully study, whether there has been any effect of reservation system in the upliftment of the lower rungs of the society or not. Implementing a stupid rule, just for the sake of getting votes in the coming assembly elections, should be a complete no-no.
I find it ironic that the education system that is supposed to make India a superpower in a near future, is morphing into one which will serve a death blow to the concept of merit.
Students around the country have already started an online petition against this rule. If you believe that this policy is unjustified and is downright regressive, do take some time out of your schedule to sign it.
Comments (4 comments)
reservations….may b….but 49.5% WTF?!!!
harry / April 8th, 2006, 11:03 pm / #
Harry: Yeah… government has just gone crazy. 49.5% is way, way too much!! That just leaves 50.5% seats for the aam junta!!
Manpreet / April 9th, 2006, 1:34 am / #
Seems that your point is getting attention otherwise as well.
I agree with you. Neeraj has already signed the petition — being an IITian he understands the situation really well. All the best — let’s hope that this helps. If you find any nice logo or anything that we can possibly put on our website to let more people know about this, let me know. Its important to get the word out:!:
Poonam / April 9th, 2006, 11:37 pm / #
I agree with you as well. Likewise the survey will be helpful to identify depreived people. There can be many more solution like in US they have scholarship for eligible candidates to help them with higher education no matter which caste..
Asha / April 16th, 2006, 6:59 am / #
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