Page 14 - EducationWorld December 2022

Editorial

RECONSIDER 103RD AMENDMENT VERDICT should have also taken judicial notice
that administrative efficiency in Cen-
tral and state government offices is
recent (November 7) judge- cally described as classes). arguably lowest worldwide.
ment of the Supreme Court In 1992 in the interests of meri- Therefore permitting government
A upheld the 103rd Amendment tocracy in academia and government, to appoint employees on criteria other
to the Constitution. By a three-two the court imposed a 50 percent ceil- than proven merit is against the pub-
majority the learned justices vali- ing on reserved quotas. However in lic interest. For evidence of official ad-
dated a patently politically motivated its majority judgement upholding the ministrative inefficiency, the learned
additional 10 percent reserved quota 103rd Amendment, the apex court has judges needed to have looked no fur-
in higher education institutions and unwisely acquiesced to a breach of that ther than their own backyard. The jus-
government jobs for economically ceiling, observing it’s not inviolate. tice system is clogged with a backlog
weaker sections (EWS) from the gen- This latest verdict is inimical to of 30 million pending cases.
eral category. This apex court verdict the broader public interest because The proper way to address histori-
requires reconsideration because it when 60 percent of students in an cal injustices to SC, ST, OBC and EWS
has the potential to further devalue HEI (higher education institution) are communities is to facilitate their ac-
merit in the academy, and enfeeble admitted on criteria other than merit, cess to the best learning and skilling
steadily deteriorating administration standards of education will inevitably institutions through provision of gen-
within the Central and state govern- suffer. Before upholding the consti- erous scholarships and bursaries.
ments. tutional validity of this new reserved Simultaneously, learned judges of
For the purposes of perspective, quota, their lordships should have the apex court need to apply their for-
it’s pertinent to note this additional taken judicial notice of the reality that midable collective intellect to cleanse
quota comes atop a 15 percent reser- not even one of India’s 1,041 universi- the augean stables of the public educa-
vation for scheduled castes (SC); 7.5 ties — despite some of them being of tion system while unambiguously pro-
percent for scheduled tribes (STs) and 150 years vintage — is ranked in the tecting the rights of quality-conscious
27 percent for other backward castes/ Top 200 World University Rankings private education providers. Levelling
classes (OBCs). Hitherto 49.5 percent (WUR) published annually by QS and down standards in the academy and
of capacity in Central and state gov- Times Higher Education, the globally public administration beyond a point
ernment colleges and universities was respected London-based HEI rating on sentimental considerations, is a
reserved for these castes (euphemisti- agencies. Secondly, the learned judges zero sum game. Everybody loses.

HARSH COUNTRY FOR LITTLE CHILDREN outcomes in rural India — especially
in government schools — are going
from bad to worse. Continuous ex-
n 1957 Jawaharlal Nehru, inde- mensional nature of hunger”. hortations of this publication to the
pendent India’s first prime minis- GHI 2022 estimates that 16.3 per- Central and state governments to
Iter, designated November 14 — his cent of the country’s population is un- increase their combined annual bud-
birthday — as Children’s Day, because dernourished, 35.5 percent children getary outlay for public education to 6
he wanted to “create an atmosphere are stunted, under-five child mortality percent of GDP as first recommended
in the country where the attention is is 3.3 percent and children suffering by the Kothari Commission in 1967,
constantly focused on children and wasting, i.e, disproportionate body have proved infructuous.
their welfare”. Yet in this editorial weight to height at 19 percent, is high- The plain truth is that the Indian
written on Children’s Day 55 years est worldwide. establishment is afflicted with aston-
later, it is the lamentable duty of your Chronic hunger — a consequence of ishing astigmatism about the impor-
editor to report that Nehru’s implicit food distribution inefficiencies rather tance of public education. Leaders
commitment that the State would ac- than deficient agri and horticulture of establishment constituencies are
cord highest priority to the happiness production — apart, pathetic shelter indifferent to the abysmal quality of
and well-being of the world’s largest and living conditions of 21st century education that 150 million underclass
child and youth population has been India’s children is a much glossed over children receive in public/government
practised more in the breach than ob- subject. The built-up area of the aver- schools. It’s these young hopefuls who
servance. age Indian home is a mere 504 sq. ft, will become government employees,
On October 15, two well-respected leaving children very little room for shopfloor workers in industry and
international voluntary organisations undisturbed study and growth. More- agri-producers of tomorrow. Their
published the Global Hunger Index over it’s well-documented (especially low productivity will ensure that high-
(GHI) 2022 which ranks India #107 in EducationWorld) that the quality of potential India will remain an also-ran
among 121 countries in the “serious” education that 260 million in-school country well into the 22nd century.
hunger category. According to the children receive is rock-bottom. It’s high time that the establish-
report, India fares poorly on all four Year after year the authoritative ment and middle class woke up to
parameters of the index — mass un- Annual Status of Education Report the harsh reality that India will never
dernourishment, child stunting, child (ASER) of the independent Pratham transform into a respected middle
wasting and child mortality, a combi- Education Foundation has highlight- class nation until and unless we cut
nation of factors signalling a “multidi- ed that primary education learning all children a better deal.

14 EDUCATIONWORLD DECEMBER 2022