Odisha authorities’s reservation for college students from state-run colleges: An admission of failure?

The Government of Odisha has just lately handed a cabinet resolution to carry reservation in medical and engineering programs for college students from authorities colleges within the state.
infographic shared by Odisha authorities
As per the Naveen Patnaik authorities’s resolution, a high-level committee headed by a retired HC decide, comprising educationist and eminent personalities can be set as much as chalk out the main points and submit its report inside 3 months. It will suggest the share of seats to be reserved, inclusion/exclusion of creamy layer(if any) and different particulars about who might be the beneficiaries.

Announcement by the Odisha authorities concerning seat reservation
For our non Odia readers, here’s a tough translation of the cabinet resolution.
“It has been noticed that there was a gentle lower within the variety of state authorities college college students enrolled for medical/Engineering programs after all-India entrance exams like NEET and JEE have been began. This just isn’t as a consequence of lack of advantage however as a consequence of lack of entry to high quality teaching.
These aggressive exams want specialised teaching, which may solely be imparted by means of teaching centres or on-line teaching courses. These teaching centres are primarily positioned in city areas. Students from rural areas and govt colleges should not have entry to those centres.
Therefore the aggressive exams are bringing in inequality amongst college students. To bridge this hole, encourage confidence and to supply a stage enjoying area to those meritorious college students from authorities colleges, the state cabinet has determined to offer reservations in engineering and medical entrance exams.”
It was hailed as one of many biggest schemes to bridge the hole between the wealthy and poor by the pro-BJD media and political sphere. Hashtags have been trended by BJD MLAs/MPs. But for those who haven’t realized how deeply flawed that is, learn alongside.
The drawback and the answer
You are a telecom service supplier. Your service high quality just isn’t on par with opponents. Your subscriber base is falling. What do you do?
Improve your service high quality? 
But this is able to require organising new BTS, towers, strengthening your fibre community, putting in high quality switches, routers and so forth. Quite some work, isn’t it? Now let’s add a rider. You are a state-owned service supplier and revel in limitless regulatory energy. You herald a brand new regulation that stipulates that day-after-day, between midday to three, personal operators have to change off their community. This 3 hours window can be completely reserved for the state-owned supplier. You drive individuals to subscribe to your service with out enhancing your service high quality.
This is what basically the Odisha authorities is doing. By the federal government’s personal admission, the issue is entry to higher teaching and studying services. The resolution ought to be to enhance the standard of teaching. But the answer the federal government is providing is to order seats in aggressive exams.
Government’s admission of failure?
In its clarification for the necessity of the reservation, the Odisha authorities has mentioned this:
Tweet by CMO Odisha“This is not due to lack of merit but a deeper divide in access to coaching”.
This is the fifth time period of  Naveen Patnaik’s rule in Odisha. What he’s telling us is, authorities colleges have failed. Government training just isn’t up to speed even after 21 years of his rule. And he can’t enhance it both. In these 21 years, he has in reality created a brand new backward class. But, as a result of he can’t uplift them, he’ll give them a reservation. Rarely we now have seen such trustworthy admission of failure.
Reservation can’t be an answer
What is the first goal of reservation? To present a stage enjoying area to backward courses in order that they are often introduced into the mainstream.
How do you assess the success of such a scheme? The most goal evaluation could be, what number of backward courses have been uplifted by such schemes. And the reply is ZERO.
Article 341 lays down the legislation concerning the identification of races, tribes and castes as SC/ST. Part 2 of the identical article empowers the federal government to incorporate or exclude castes from the listing of SC/ST. However, post-1950, not a single caste has been faraway from the listing of SC or ST. To summarise, reservation has not been in a position to uplift a single caste from SC/ST.
Does caste based mostly discrimination exists? Yes, it does. Can reservation be an answer to this? Data in final 70 years inform us, reservation has didn’t bridge this inequality and uplift backward courses. Hence, reservation as a coverage, to supply stage enjoying area, has failed.
Reservation for Economically Backward Classes
This thought has been gaining numerous traction, no less than on social media. It could sound righteous and therefore troublesome to counter. But it’s deeply flawed too.
The genesis of reservation is to undo the historic improper. Lower castes have been and in some circumstances, nonetheless are denied a stage enjoying area. And this denial comes from a socially imposed incapacity on them. Because, the society has imposed incapacity, it turns into society’s duty to compensate for it. Hence, society should give greater than equal share of assets to such courses.
EWS are additionally deprived like backward courses when it comes to entry to assets, training for instance. However, is that this incapacity imposed by society? There is not any concept which backs this assertion. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense for society to compensate from their share.
So ought to govt go away poor individuals at their very own destiny? Of course not. There ought to be schemes like scholarships, mid-day meal, focussed teaching for confidence-building measures. But to remove another person’s share sounds completely unfair. Does it sound like wealth redistribution? Do you now see what’s improper?
What About poor college students from non-government colleges
Let’s take the federal government’s proposal at face worth. The intention is to “build confidence among meritorious students” who are usually not in a position to entry high quality teaching like college students of privates colleges do. What about meritorious college students who are usually not from authorities colleges however nonetheless belong to the economically weaker part(EWS), and reside in rural areas?
There are a complete of 1000 Saraswati Shishu Vidya Mandirs in Odisha, run by RSS, which have 420,956 college students beneath its tutelage being taught by 12,000 lecturers. Up to 2010, SSVM college students topped the matriculation exams for 4 consecutive years, put up which the federal government stopped publishing this information. In reality, 55 out of the highest 100 and 18 out of high 30 have been from SSVMs. What about these meritorious college students? They too are from EWS and therefore don’t have entry to high quality teaching like different authorities college college students. They selected SSVM as a result of they thought SSVMs are higher than authorities colleges. Why deny reservation to them? Are they not poor? Or are they not meritorious sufficient?
This is a lazy resolution to a real drawback. Socialism debate aside, in our nation, healthcare and training are two fields the place the federal government should proceed to play a major function. However, strikes like this can do irreparable injury. No successive authorities will attempt to enhance the standard of training in govt colleges as they’ve discovered an alternate however an ineffective and lazy resolution. The greater drawback is, no political get together price its salt will ever problem it in court docket or roll it again. The second you connect “pro-poor” to a scheme, it turns into sacrosanct.
One can simply hope in opposition to hope that higher sense prevails and the Naveen authorities stops this disastrous transfer earlier than the cabinet resolution turns into legislation.