Percentage scare

In a repeat performance of the imposition of the percentile system on Maharashtras junior colleges just a couple of days before the display of admissions lists last year,on June 8 this year,about a week before the declaration of the Class 10 results,Maharashtra Education Minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil proposed reserving 90 per cent of junior college seats for students from the state board the Secondary School Certificate. As with the hastily-imposed percentile system,the Mumbai high court has again set aside the government resolution on the reservation that would have overwhelmingly shut out non-SSC students. Since SSC schools outnumber CBSE and ICSE ones and include all Marathi-medium students,the government resolution was seen as a fait accompli since the MNS and the Shiv Sena were on board. With or without the Maharashtra assembly elections in the vicinity,the state board has apparently become hostage to politics. Needless to say,the resolution was deemed arbitrary and unfair.

The courts observation that the only acceptable principle for seat allotment is the merit-cum-preference criterion,and that merit determinative processes such as entrance tests provide a common standard for judging students,should return us to the argument in favour of standardising board examinations and evaluation across the country. A single national board is supposed to be on the radar of Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal. Such a uniform system of conducting examinations and assessing students thereof would end the hysteria and heartbreak associated with admissions annually,and court battles as in Maharashtra of late. It would not only make it easier for students to move about the country but also allow prompt and more accurate assessment of student calibre nationally,with the same parameters. It would certainly put paid to allegations and counter-allegations of unfairness and unmerited advantages.

The Maharashtra fiasco demonstrates it is time for the Union HRD ministry to start working on the contours of the single board,by talking to state governments and debating its relative merits and demerits. Care has to be taken that federalism and regional culture are not seen to be trampled upon and that any existing Central board,which can hardly be a paragon of perfection,does not find itself automatically elevated. The sooner the HRD ministry moves on this the better because it will be a long haul.