Why CBSE students have to kiss their MBBS
dreams goodbye
Pushpa Narayan
|
`Quota For State Board Students Will Ensure Better Healthcare In TN'
Some arguments made in a court room a quarter century ago has been echoing in the ears of Krithi ka S, a software engineer, since Saturday . That's when state health minister C Vijaya Baskar announced an internal reservation of 85% for MBBS BDS admissions this year.The contents of the government order, which she received on her daughter's school WhatsApp group, reminded her of the one the government issued 25 years ago, a month after she cleared her Class XII exams.
The 1992 order, which reserved a mere 2% of the seats in professional colleges for CBSE students, meant she had to kiss goodbye her dream of becoming an engineer.On Saturday , her daughter broke down when she saw a scroll on TV that said students from CBSE and other board would have 15% left from the state quota. “I told her the government's decision would be struck down for sure, just like it happened in 1992,“ said Krithika.
In 1992, the state said it would reserve 98% of seats in professional colleges for students from state board as it felt CBSE had pushed up scores of its students by moderation. They feared that most seats in professional colleges will be taken up by CBSE students as 50% of the marks were drawn from Class XII and the remaining were taken from a common entrance test. The court struck down reservation and ruled that the state should consider only performance in the entrance.
On Monday , Krithika and a group of other parents were exploring legal remedies as they feel the order is discriminatory and throws out the rule of merit. More than anything else, legal experts say , the order may not pass the test in court. “The order is based on government assumption that students from the central board would score more than the state board. The order makes an exemption from Article 14 which prescribes equality before law. For such an exemption we need an exceptional reasoning. When we don't have any numbers to show why state board students will be at a disadvantage, there is a good chance of courts striking down the order,“ said former Madras high court judge K Chandru. Under the constitution, reservation, if any , should be vertical or horizontal. While vertical reservation is meant for social uplift, horizontal reservation can be a tiny allocation for women, grandchildren of freedom fighters or the disabled. “Several times courts across India, including the Supreme Court, have stuck down any other reservation that compromised merit,“ said Chandru.
But for thousands of state board students, the order restores social justice -more than 90% of the students who would qualify the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) would be from the state board. Of the 82,000 students who wrote NEET, less than 5,000 were from CBSE.“More than 50% of the questions in biology were not from state board textbooks.It is unfair that CBSE, which has its own schools, sets the question paper for the rest of the country,“ said S Manikandan, a school teacher.
For Tamil Nadu, there are more pressing needs. There are 22 state-run medical colleges which have to give 434 of the 2,900 seats to the All India quota. “No other state has so many government medical colleges.Our medical colleges work as tertiary care systems strengthening healthcare,“ said state health secretary J Radhakrishnan.
While many self-financing colleges and deemed universities have management quota, the state government is left without any return of investment. “Unlike private colleges, we offer subsidised education and want meritorious students from our board to benefit,“ said health minister Vijaya Baskar.
Students who pass out from state-run colleges and serve in government's hospitals in rural and difficult areas are given special incentives such as additional marks for PG and super-specialty admissions. “This way we have a good number of doctors in rural areas. The basis of reservation is more for universal health coverage and health security ,“ Baskar said.
The 1992 order, which reserved a mere 2% of the seats in professional colleges for CBSE students, meant she had to kiss goodbye her dream of becoming an engineer.On Saturday , her daughter broke down when she saw a scroll on TV that said students from CBSE and other board would have 15% left from the state quota. “I told her the government's decision would be struck down for sure, just like it happened in 1992,“ said Krithika.
In 1992, the state said it would reserve 98% of seats in professional colleges for students from state board as it felt CBSE had pushed up scores of its students by moderation. They feared that most seats in professional colleges will be taken up by CBSE students as 50% of the marks were drawn from Class XII and the remaining were taken from a common entrance test. The court struck down reservation and ruled that the state should consider only performance in the entrance.
On Monday , Krithika and a group of other parents were exploring legal remedies as they feel the order is discriminatory and throws out the rule of merit. More than anything else, legal experts say , the order may not pass the test in court. “The order is based on government assumption that students from the central board would score more than the state board. The order makes an exemption from Article 14 which prescribes equality before law. For such an exemption we need an exceptional reasoning. When we don't have any numbers to show why state board students will be at a disadvantage, there is a good chance of courts striking down the order,“ said former Madras high court judge K Chandru. Under the constitution, reservation, if any , should be vertical or horizontal. While vertical reservation is meant for social uplift, horizontal reservation can be a tiny allocation for women, grandchildren of freedom fighters or the disabled. “Several times courts across India, including the Supreme Court, have stuck down any other reservation that compromised merit,“ said Chandru.
But for thousands of state board students, the order restores social justice -more than 90% of the students who would qualify the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) would be from the state board. Of the 82,000 students who wrote NEET, less than 5,000 were from CBSE.“More than 50% of the questions in biology were not from state board textbooks.It is unfair that CBSE, which has its own schools, sets the question paper for the rest of the country,“ said S Manikandan, a school teacher.
For Tamil Nadu, there are more pressing needs. There are 22 state-run medical colleges which have to give 434 of the 2,900 seats to the All India quota. “No other state has so many government medical colleges.Our medical colleges work as tertiary care systems strengthening healthcare,“ said state health secretary J Radhakrishnan.
While many self-financing colleges and deemed universities have management quota, the state government is left without any return of investment. “Unlike private colleges, we offer subsidised education and want meritorious students from our board to benefit,“ said health minister Vijaya Baskar.
Students who pass out from state-run colleges and serve in government's hospitals in rural and difficult areas are given special incentives such as additional marks for PG and super-specialty admissions. “This way we have a good number of doctors in rural areas. The basis of reservation is more for universal health coverage and health security ,“ Baskar said.
No comments:
Post a Comment