Road to progress

For the third year running, the Maharashtra government has managed to delay junior college admissions.

Its intentions have been clear — it wants to give a handicap to students who pass through the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) board, at the expense of students from other boards.

Behind this thinking is the implied idea that SSC students are more “local” than other students and the government wants to be seen as giving them an advantage. In a sense, it is the ‘sons of the soil’ argument in another garb.

The problem is not just that the state education department’s ideas are discriminatory and un-Constitutional and have therefore been struck down by the courts for three years. It is that it is playing ducks and drakes with education.

First it was the ‘90% SCC-10% other boards’ formula, then the percentile system to favour SSC students and now the ‘best-of-five’ subjects for SSC students and all seven subjects for others.

This year the state government has decided to appeal the Mumbai High Court decision in the Supreme Court, thereby delaying admissions to junior college till at least the middle of July.

In all this supposed concern for students, the fact is that it is students who will suffer the most.

As of now, whichever board they belong to, they will miss part of the academic year which they will have to make up. The larger issue is of this narrow-minded intention to win votes through parochial politics, without any concern for education itself.

The Opposition in Maharashtra and the Congress’s own alliance partner, the Nationalist Congress Party, have both criticised the government’s stance.

If the state government indeed feels that SSC students are at a disadvantage compared to those who go through other boards then the intelligent and long-term solution would be to improve the level of SSC students.

If they have to be brought up to par — and there is no evidence that SSC students are less intelligent, capable or hard-working as the government intervention seems to suggest — then give them the tools to rise. Bringing other students down is hardly the answer.

Moreover, there is time for a serious debate on whether education really needs to be a state subject where local politicians can mess around with the student population. India is becoming smaller everyday as people move much more than before.

It would then make sense to have a nationwide level playing field where all students have a fair chance to compete. Politics in education is one more setback on our road to progress.