90% Reservation Quota For SSC Students – Is It Justifiable?

Well a lot has been said about this quota. Many have supported it(mainly because many belongs to ssc camp) while some oppose it. Some has even went to the Court to challenge this ruling by the government. So the big question is whether it is justifiable or not.

The facts that support this ruling are

• If we calculate the no. of students belonging to the ICSE & CBSE pattern is mere 8-9%(I heard it in the news. I don’t take the responsibility of this data to be correct ). Hence this 10% quota is enough for each student belonging to these schools can easily obtained admissions in any college. This is not acceptable to these students as this limits their chances of entering into the prestigious colleges. I don’t blame them as no one wants to go to high school attached junior colleges for their discipline is just the kind of as it is in the high schools and they have uniforms. Students after wearing these uniforms for 12 years don’t want to don uniforms anymore.
• Nowadays many schools do away with their registration index no. of SSC boards and just for obtaining higher fees they register with ICSE and CBSE boards and parents too don’t mind spending more money on their kids to get them admitted into these schools. This trend is going on increasing and if it continues to be so then after some years down the line there will be more schools under the ICSE and CBSE banner and less under the SSC banner. My point is then why these schools don’t have colleges for these students. The no. of colleges under the CBSE and ICSE banner still remain less. Parents too don’t take this point into account as they know their wards will be able to score more marks in CBSE or ICSE pattern because of their leniant paper checking.
• The third fact as I stated above is the leniant paper checking that provides the CBSE/ICSE students an edge over the SSC students. Well They argue that their syllabus is harder as it consists many topics of the HSC pattern. But that is totally different thing.  Just compare this fact- their topper is always 97-98% and the SSC topper is always scores 94-95%. This difference always remain even in the average students case. If the SSC board just follows suit, making its paper checking as leniant as the ICSE and CBSE boards then there will be a bigger problem of all students having good marks but no one getting the admission. Just consider this, Birla College a famous college in Kalyan (thats where I lived) had a cut off list of 89 % last year. If the SSC board too make their paper checking process leniant then you would find these cut off list closing at 93-94%. And this is just the college which is in the suburb. What about the reputed colleges in Mumbai.

Now the point that I think that goes against this GR

• There were reports in the newspaper somedays back that this reservation is unconstitutional.

So what? I think this reservation is good thing but if those reports about this reservation being unconstitutional are true then this scheme should be scraped and some other system should be brought in place of this reservation. Speaking about my view, I thought that last years percentile system was a better option but the parents of the ICSE/CBSE students successfully challenged that rule and I thought the government should have gone and challenged this ruling in higher court as it was aimed at briging the students at the same level.

P.S.  This subject is highly debatable. If you have views that are contradicting my views then you are encouraged to add comment and present your point of view.

Updated : Well the SSC results are out and am surprised that the topper got 98.61%. Gone are the days when the SSC topper used to get 94 %. The state board too seems to be going the CBSE/ICSE way with liberal checking. I don’t think it is good for the students as I mentioned earlier. I am not against standadisation of all boards. I think that is what is needed. Moreover yesterday Kapil Sibal, the HRD minister said the need for one board and I like the idea. But he also mentioned about having optional class X examination so as to reduce the pressure on the students. I don’t like this suggestion as it will leave students untested till the class XII. If we want the standard of education to be maintained and enhance further the students should be evaluated regularly about their knowledge. Though schools have their own exams after every three months, these exams don’t test the students the way calss X and class XII exams test them. To reduce the mental torture that these exams put the students through I think let find some other alernative path. Maybe something like having the students as well as parents going through counselling compulsarily before these exams.

About the higher education, I ave heard about the Yashpal comittee and though I haven’t gone through all of their recommendations, some of their recommendations are exciting such as having one body instead of several bodies like UGC, AICTE etc., reviewing the status of deemed universtites regularly, awarding institutes like IITs and NITs universtiy status. I am looking forward to more news about the recommendations about this committee as well as what the government does about htese recommendations.

Updated on 8th of July : Just 2 days ago the High court announced the result of the petitions filed related to this issue in favour of the non-SSC students and against the government. This ruling has broken the heart of many SSC students as their plans to enter big reputed colleges has been reduced (this is what they think). But I don’t think this will make much difference as this year the SSC papers are also liberally checked as is visible through the results. So eventhough the non-SSC students will still find easier to enter the reputed colleges, the no. of non-SSC student will definitely decrease this time around.

About this result – is it good? Well as the judges observed this reservation is not right and some other way of bringing all the students from different boards at the same platform by introducing some kind of entrance test.  I don’t think introducing an entrance test will be a good idea as it will add some extra pressure to the sudents. Also it can degrade the importance of class X exams as CET has done to the class XII exam (most students just go for 50% marks in class XII exam and concentrate more on CET). I prefer a percentile-like any other and better than the previous one will be brought out by the government wit the consent of all the parties involved. Moreover if all parties involved agree to any system well in advance of the admission procedure I think such delaying of commencement of junior colleges due to admission procedure will be avoided. Last heard colleges were thinking about scrapping the 1st unit test due to the delay in commencement of colleges.

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