Mandal II - Why?
I still have very vivid memories of what happened during the VP government rule during the Mandal Commission crisis, though I never understood why that happened. I was still in school in my 6th or 7th standard and was too young to understand the consequences of such an act. First time I had heard young students burning themselves live and first time the word RESERVATION.
It was our mid semester exams and a group of students from local university came inside our school exam room and asked us to shout "Mandal commission murdabad". I don't know how come the school authorities allowed them (school authorities do had troubles managing the mob and we had even later police deployed at the compound) but our teachers also insisted to say one or two times so that the mob can then go back and we can safely pursue our exams.
And then for next 1-2 months it was holiday time, every one or two days we used to go and check if school would reopen. I was not an avid reader and did not quite understand what was it all about and with time I forgot about what all that happened.
Today after having gone through the entrance examination route, having an IIT degree, having spent around 3 years in Austria, and now trying to build a product company in India, I am seeing the same stories in newspapers again. Any my heart and my mind questions my soul - why - why again? Haven't we learn't any lessons from the past ?
I am not against doing quotas or reservation but to what extent ? In school I had friends from all castes and I myself never knew what SC/ST actually meant? Had we had the same quotas for getting admission in school, the fact that something like this exists would have created more hatredness amongst various communities.
IIT's have maintained a good standard in providing education irrespective of the quota system. We do had colleagues from the SC/ST category but at times they excelled and scored more marks and others appreciated it. Teachers to my knowledge had never been impartial in giving marks. And the IIT system that one has to clear degree maximum in 6 years or providing a preparatory 1 year course to weak SC/ST students has never affected the high education standards set up by them.
But moving from 25% to a reservation of 49.5%, is that justified even if IIT's maintain that standard of education? Students burn their midnight oil - studying at times 14-16 hours a day and their parents spend an equivalent amount of time guiding them. Visit any IIT- JEE examination center, the day IIT entrance exam is held, one can see the worries of the parents and their concern about their student's future career.
Are we as humans justified in making policies that puts reservations/quotas above excellence and that too of young minds who have yet to start a career and experience life?
The aim of reservation was to make weaker socities economically stronger, so where is the economic justification to reservation? If politicians want to do a 49.5% reservation, I would ask them to add a clause along - Annual income of all those people who want to file a reservation seat should have an annual income below 1 lakh or 2 lakh. Economically a SC/ST family earning 2 lakhs as annual income should be at par with a general category family earning the same amount. So opportunities for kids for both families should be same. But politicians won't do it, it's another issue , it's another day for them!
2 Comments:
What "merit" are we talking of anyway ? Scores in entrance exams at age of 17?
The issue is not of reservation . It is of deservation !! For too long people from certain castes have been claiming certin priviledges as a divine right .So what has been reserved for so long now needs to be dereserved !!
Take the claim of "merit based" entrance to all IIMs, Mudra Insitute of Communication, Manipal
IMT, Ghaziabad
MDI, Gurgaon
Goa Institute of Management
Institute of Technology and Management (multiple locations all over India).
Institute of Management Development & Research, Pune
The CAT exam is based on the SAT exam in the USA . It has been proved beyond doubt that the SAT test is culturally biased . Blacks and hispanics do poorly at it year after year .
If a student who is eligible for admission to IIM on the basis of his CAT score, were to take the same CAT exam in which he/she cleared in a language that he/she did not understand then he/she would be at a disadvantage compared to someone who was schooled in that language . Not knowing that language does not mean you lack the capacity to clear that exam.
Approximately 25 % of CAT test is about English! Another 25 % is about English Comprehension!!!! There you are !!!! About 50 % so called aptitude test is a hoax for someone who is from a non-english speaking background .
This is how the CAT like the SAT is discriminatory .
See the full form of SAT …Scholastic Aptitude Test . The problem is aptitude testing is not so simple . There is no test on earth which can reliably tests aptitude .
Aptitude tests such as the SAT have a historical tie to the concept of innate mental abilities and the belief that such abilities can be defined and meaningfully measured. Neither notion has been supported by modern research. Few scientists who have considered these matters seriously would argue that aptitude tests such as the SAT provide a true measure of intellectual abilities.
It was found that people could be coached to better their scores at SAT . The name SAT …Scholastic Aptitude Test could not be correct . So under such valid criticism the name was changed to Scholastic Assessment Test, since a test that can be coached clearly did not measure inherent "scholastic aptitude", but was influenced largely by what the test subject had learned in school. Even the College Board which conducts the SAT has beaten a hasty retreat.This was a major theoretical retreat by the College Board conducting SAT, which had previously maintained that the test measured inherent aptitude and was free of bias.
About ten years back , however, even the redundancy of the term assessment test was recognized and the name was changed to the neutral, and non-descriptive, SAT. At the time, the College Board announced, "Please note that SAT is not an initialism. It does not stand for anything."
The framers of these SAT tests assumed that intelligence was a unitary inherited attribute, that it was not subject to change over a lifetime, and that it could be measured and individuals could be ranked and assigned their place in society accordingly. The SAT evolved from these questionable assumptions about human talent and potential.
More and more people are questioning the validity of SAT . In the past MENSA used to accept high SAT score individuals . For the past decade it has stopped accepting SAT scores .
The whole exercise of deciding merit based on CAT scores discriminates against those from lower socio-economic status.
Though many non-IIM institutes have started accepting CAT scores, the application fee of these institutes is still inexplicably high.
The CAT is primarily an exam of Math and English. Logical and Analytical Reasoning is nearly absent (except for some verbal reasoning which again depends on knowing English well!!!!).
CAT is a clever way to keep those from lower socio-economic strata away Institutes funded with tax payers money .
So claims of “Merit” based on CAT scores is hollow and discriminatory against those of lower socio-economic strata.
Dhirubhai Ambani had a poor command over English . He would not have made it through CAT. So what "merit" are we talking of?
I agree with some point made by Mr. Anonymous .
i think language is should not be the criteria but sadly folks in India have a subconscious bias toward it .
i know how much help it is to be able to utter few words in a foreigner's lingo . with rise of Offshore nation syndrome English as a skill is highly overrated .
but again fixing some seats in some institute will not be of much help . based on my experience of studying in a Govt Engg. college i can say that i create a silo , folks are more concretely separated and polarized in group .
Even after implementing reservation for more than two decades , its benefit to community is very little. i sad to admit it and going on record about it but in some cases it had made folks complacent . so the worst part is that reservation which was supposed to make some people competitive by creating level playing field is actually making them complacent .
now problem is that who will die on the altar of fixing a big time social flaw . i think there can be a good solution if any aspiring candidate from minority can take benefit of reservation at one time only and then capitalize on it . i mean either use your minority reservation privilage while taking admission in college or while applying for job
Not both of the time . does it sound ok guys ??
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