Excellence is not exclusivity

Today, the privileged top five per cent of the population 8212; who confuse 8220;privilegocracy8221; with meritocracy 8212; would have liked the government to continue looking the other way even as its institutions merrily deviate from national social objectives. Besides, there is something fundamentally irrational in the argument for the 8220;autonomy8221; of IITs and IIMs. These institutions have been touted as 8220;islands of excellence8221;. Granted. But what is forgotten is that they were also an expression of a national vision and reached where they are today with government support and protection. Now is the time to consolidate and go to the next step: by introducing the same degree of excellence in more and more engineering and management institutes so that a larger section of the population can benefit.

As we saw in the NCERT episode, all kinds of wrong notions about the minister8217;s intentions were in circulation. There was news about how an IIM director had contemptuously 8220;rejected8221; a government grant in order to protect the IIM8217;s autonomy. The media got a shock when the director of IIM, Ahmedabad, N.R. Narayana Murthy, himself declared that the reports about him 8220;returning8221; a government grant was utterly baseless. He also cleared any misconception that the public may have harboured about the government8217;s intentions by lending his support to the plan to reduce fees in IIMs and to increase the annual student intake.

Take also the media propaganda about the IIT system being an island of excellence in an ocean of mediocrity. For some months now, the elite in this country has been raising hell over the government8217;s decision to route all contributions of the NRI alumni of IITs, through the Bharat Siksha Kosh. What is wrong with that? Apart from two IITs 8212; Kharagpur and Mumbai 8212; none of the other four 8212; in Delhi, Chennai, Guwahati and Kanpur 8212; receive substantial NRI largesse. It was only the directors of the two favoured IITs who, under pressure from their alumni, made allegations about 8220;interference8221;. The others went public with their support for the Bharat Sikhsa Kosh acting as the conduit for funds. But this was either ignored or played down.

Recently, the HRD minister shocked an audience in Kolkata with some revealing statistics. He pointed out that each IIT gets outlays between Rs 70-80 crore from the government, which amounts to Rs 750 crore per year. The less glamorous Roorkee University 8212; home to India8217;s first engineering college 8212; gets only Rs 16 crore in Central funds. Yet, the knowhow its scientific talent generates for the country8217;s scientific-industrial establishment is in no way inferior to that of the IIT system.

Runaway elitism is neither socially desirable, nor productive. The roots of the disdain NRIs have for everything Indian lies in the culture of exclusivity bred in the so-called institutions of excellence. Scratch the surface and the veneer of merit crumbles. Apart from those joining IIMs and IITs through caste-based quotas, the vast majority of students come from privileged backgrounds. And if we continue to nurse the illusion that a 8220;centre of excellence8221; deserves the state8217;s partiality in terms of funds and facilities, there is a real danger of society being polarised.

The education system inherited by the present government was one based on privilege. All round us we see terrible injustices being perpetrated in the name of breeding 8220;excellence8221;. For instance, many private schools in Delhi flout the government8217;s rule about reserving a certain number of seats for children from economically challenged backgrounds. The managements of some of these schools had received state lands against token payments only after agreeing to meet this condition. Yet, they do nothing more than organise 8220;evening classes8221; for some children from nearby jhuggi-jhopri clusters. And, more often than never, even this intervention is staged for the media. Now the Delhi High Court has finally asked them to honour their promise. Landmark judgments like these come as boost to truly progressive developments on the education front.