By Mohammad Salman,
The first five months of the current year have seen four major developments which have direct implications for, besides others, the largest minority of the country – the Muslims. The Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal’s decision to overhaul the entrance exam system for IITs is the latest development.
The year started with political leaders fighting over the OBC sub-quota for Minorities including Muslims. The issue raked up by grand old party and later taken up by all the big players was played assuming Muslims’ support on this issue for granted. However, by ignoring this last moment election gimmick of Congress party, UP public in general and Muslim community in particular has played quiet smartly. Then in May, results of Civil services examination were declared. They showed the same 2-3 % Muslim representation as per the past trend. Then came the news of clean chit by SIT to Narendra Modi in the post-Godhra Gulberg massacre case. But the most visible and unnoticed news was of JEE entrance exam result where, we saw around 400 Muslim students cracking the entrance barrier and securing a place into final merit list.
Did success of 400 Muslims in IIT-JEE disturb policymakers?
One of my friends spoke up his mind to me that, this shooting up of the number of Muslim students passing JEE entrance exam may have gone unnoticed by the general public, but somewhere in the minds of policymakers, it has gone quiet disturbingly so much that entire system of JEE Entrance exam has been thrown to overhauling. If I go with my thought processes so far, wherein I always tried seeing the positives in government decisions, I should throw out this weird thought of my friend as quickly as possible. But the proposed change in JEE Entrance exam wherein Secondary standard marks would be counted in henceforth, has somewhere shaken my confidence also in positivity of government decisions, leaving me not in position to advise my Muslim brethren to come out of this negative thought.
The pathetic situation of our schools in deep pockets of country, whether run by government or community societies; non uniformity in standards of CBSE and various state boards; Poor infrastructure of teaching and labs at secondary levels in these schools of interior areas; contribute a lot for ensuring poor marks in the mark sheets of even laborious and serious students enrolled in these schools.
New system will keep students of state boards out of IITs
The current system of JEE entrance exam, howsoever outdated may be, acts as a level playing field for all class students whether CBSE enrolled English medium or state Board Hindi Medium students; Poor ones or Rich students; Urban or Rural schools pass-outs. And when we have a proposal rather decision, to add these secondary and higher secondary level marks in the JEE entrance, then definitely it’s not fair play and is a step towards ensuring poor representation of less privileged students of the rural government /societies run Hindi medium schools of deep pockets of the country. It doesn’t matter whether they belong to minority or the majority communities. Parking aside for a while the suspicion or negative thought regarding timings of proposed JEE entrance exam change; let’s start this issue from the positive points first.
First, One India-One entrance with Weightage of 12th class exam is aimed to stop the mushrooming of IIT-Engineering coaching classes where rich and affluent kids spend the big money resulting in unnecessary financial burden on the poor parents. But when we can undo and check by taxing in retrospective even the big corporate giants like Vodafone, why can’t we curb this menace of coaching mafia. Unlike fighting with corporate’s lobby and taxing in retrospective, taking these coaching centers head on is much easier if confronted in right earnest.
Secondly, why to take such a decision in a hurry when our basic higher-secondary and secondary boards are still not of uniform standard. Those who have gone through UP board exam, for example, will definitely support this fact. A student of UP board has to go through much more syllabus before writing the 12th Class exam than his CBSE enrolled colleague. Even after that it’s rare to see merit list of UP board with marks in nineties as against the CBSE results merit list which always remain full of marks in nineties.
Changing of the student selection system should start post changing the stubborn and corrupt administrative council members of IITs or for medical colleges removing the bad elements of MCI from the top. There are instances where prestigious brand IIT is milked by IIT teachers and industry alike. Many of the IIT faculty members remain idle in name of pursuing consultancy work and corporate keep on disbursing fatty checks, as industrial projects just require the stamp of IIT for work to move ahead.
Areas requiring more attention than overhauling the IIT-JEE
Before JEE entrance overhaul to upgrade the quality, lots of genuine ground work are pending in filling up the faculty positions lying vacant for years in these IITs, in the name of age old rules of merit and traditional recruitment criteria.
In order to maintain the high quality and standards of the IITS, instead of changing the JEE entrance system, the mushrooming of private run technical institutes needed to be stopped at the earliest. These private technical institutes, in the name of quality have nothing but lucrative heavy salaries for professor’s n lecturers and heavy fees for the poor students.
Coming to the negative point of my friend now regarding timing of JEE entrance overhaul just when 400 Muslim students came into final merit list of JEE 2012. Although almighty Allah knows better and one should not suspect the intentions of others, but this Suspicion is strong in the light of the facts as disclosed in media. As per the media reporting, this issue was being discussed for a long time with HRD Ministry and IIT Councils, but final decision was taken quiet hurriedly against the advice and decisions of majority of IIT faculty members.
Another fact to embolden this negative thought is that, the same government which took the minorities reservation so strongly during UP Elections was helpless in defending the same in the court. If constitutionally reservation is not feasible why the issue was raked up and if intentions were genuine then why not the issue taken through parliamentary legislation.
(The author can be contacted at Email [email protected])