Friday, April 11, 2008

Save the IIT

Today the court had agreed for quota in creamy colleges. There are pros and cons.

To me, it looks like this is not the way to bring social equality. For eg, let us say we want to bridge the gap between rich and poor, one yard stick could be to see that poor are able to enjoy the luxury of five star hotels. If a politician sees an opportunity in this whole deal, and he forces the hotel to open the door for the poor ... he may put hundreds of poor in the building but it is a short term benefit for all (except for the politician). It is a degradation to the hotel. In long run, the poor are going to end up in similar poor-ness state like they were before, just that now they are inside the building.

Here the point is not against getting the poor inside the hotel. It is about the process. Instead it has to be cultivated at the root level. See that there are abundance, prosperity, skill usage etc so that people can climb up on their own to excel. That would be a way to bring people up and match with the rich. A tedious, abstract, theoretical process, but that is the way to go.

Coming back to quota for education, it is nothing different from the above scenario. Weaker strata needs more infra structure to build their basic knowledge. Upon stepping onto the fundamental level, they will have to climb up and compete with all others. The purpose of creamy college is to provide environment to nurture supreme intelligence. That ought to be honored.

Check out Burn the IIT.

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