Education, Education

The Indian Education System seems to be undergoing much change for the past few years, as the News has highlighted various educational policies put forth by both Dr.Arjun Singh and his predecessor Kapil Sibal.

While the Government has implemented the Mid-day meal scheme, which promises the incentive of a nutritious full meal for school children, it has also put forth a proposal to do away with Board exams. This may ease tensions, quite literally, but a replacement measure that is feasible is yet to be put forth. One feels it will be some time before to-be matriculates will rejoice.

A lot of tinkering has been witnessed in the Maharashtra Education Board, not much of it has been approved. For example, the Percentile system, which was implemented for the academic College year 2008-09 was, was looked upon as complex and disadvantageous to students with lesser percentages. The method used to calculate a student’s percentile itself was seen as flawed.

The Percentile system was challenged in the Mumbai High court and the court asked the state to scrap the faulty system. The State government was yet not ready to give up. It was adamant to formulate a system that would keep the disparities with respect to marks limited. The very next year, the College year 2009-10 saw the introduction of what was widely referred to as ‘The 90:10 policy’. This policy aimed at reservation of 90% of all junior college seats for State Education Board Students (SSC Students). This became a subject of much debate among parents, would-be collegians, and the State Education Minister, Mr.Vikhe-Patil. Finally, the High Court once again played the role of a decision-maker and decreed that the 90:10 Policy was biased and hence, must not be implemented.

Moving away from the State of Maharashtra, and rather looking at Education policies from an All-India point of view, one can recollect various incidents regarding the Reservation of Seats at government educational institutes (like the IIMs, and the IITs) for Scheduled Castes/Tribes. The Bill was passed with majority in the Parliament, but the Students deemed it to be unjust and biased, as it left few seats in the open category to contest for.

The Conclusions that are drawn firstly, is that Reservation in Education continues to be the major bone of contention and secondly, that while change is being welcomed, it is not exactly done so with open arms.