The recent decision by the Minister of State for Education Vikhe Patil to propose a 90 per cent reservation at Junior Colleges for SSC Board students, has sparked off an expected uproar amongst parents. No one needs statistics to know that there is a severe shortage of (high quality) schools and colleges in the country and when reservations further limit the choices and the chances of a qualified student, it certainly must be infuriating.
For his part Patil has put up several arguments. One being that schools that choose not to adopt the state run Board must start their own junior colleges and therefore not impinge upon an asset based in the state- the Junior colleges. In essence there is a penalty for being a non-state Board institute. At some level this argument would be fair only if this penalty was known when these schools were given the permission to set up shop in the state, to begin with. How can it be fair to put this rule in place after permission has been granted for Non-State Board schools to start operations? Many schools like Cathedral in Mumbai have been operating for decades now and cannot be expected to change tracks suddenly. Also by annexing ninety percent of the seats in junior colleges for the state board students, Patil is implying that these junior colleges are somehow state property. This just isn’t true. Many of these colleges are run by private trusts and charitable organizations and should be allowed to decide their criteria for admissions.
Patil also feels that the ICSE and CBSE Board schools consider themselves to be “superior” to the state SSC board schools- their shunning of the state Board is an insult of the state Board he says. I say that this is an expression of choices that exist in a developed economy. It is the same as having state run and privately run banks. Would you be any less Indian if you banked with ICICI and not at SBI? The existence of multiple Boards is a sign of a mature education system. Obviously these very successful Boards are thriving because they are fulfilling a need. The existence of multiple Boards gives the students and schools a very real choice. A Non-State board, freed from many of the shackles of a state’s limited agenda, is more able to innovate in terms of curriculum and teaching methodologies. So schools that are more open to innovation have a choice in the Board the adopt, thereby creating a nation of diverse people.
And even if we agreed with the notion that there was an elitist attitude amongst the non-State Board schools, isn’t it better to use that as an opportunity to review the SSC Board and see if there isn’t a way to improve it’s image? Otherwise reservations will amount to nothing more than a way to arm-twist schools and colleges into accepting the lowest common standard (at least as perceived by them) and feel themselves sacrificed at the fake altar of state pride.
One newspaper pointed out that not only is it good to have multiple Boards but a state like Maharashtra with a huge migrant population also needs this system. Many people come here for temporary employment and their children need to have access to education in a system they are familiar with. So non-state, national level, boards like CBSE and ICSE provide them with the continuity they need in their education. And this is true not only of Maharashtra but of most states in the country. With today’s economy and lifestyles, people often move across state borders for lifestyle and employment reasons. If all states had only state level Boards and nothing available across borders, children would necessarily suffer.
To conclude, in his zeal to promote the pride of the State Board, Mr. Patil is ignoring the hidden perils that come with reservations. Reservations and quota systems kill competition and promote complacency, thereby lowering the over all quality of the output that a school could give. Competition lies at the root of progress. Scarce resources motivate people to work harder and smarter to reach the top. Take away that instinct to compete and you will be breeding intellectually inferior people who will feel no need to make any significant progress.
