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I read your detailed cover story on reservation for OBCs (in institutions of higher education) in your latest issue (EW May) with great interest. Congratulations for the rare degree of objectivity with which you have analysed this complex issue.

After reading the cover stories in EW and India Today (May 15), some things have become very clear. First there is a strong case for 22.5 percent reservation for SCs and STs (scheduled castes and scheduled tribes) in all institutions of education including private schools. For the simple reason that for several millennia, unspeakable injustices and humiliations were heaped upon them under the rigid Hindu caste system. These continuous injustices broke the spirit and self-confidence of these bottom-of-the-ladder castes and tribes. Therefore they are entitled to positive discrimination or affirmative action in their favour — a societal apology for past wrongs and institutionalised injustice.

However as correctly argued by you, all the 3,000 OBCs are not on the same footing as SCs and STs. Many of them have prospered after independence and the abolition of the zamindari system. Indeed some of them have become dominant castes in several parts of the country. Therefore it would be unfair to give all OBCs preferential admission into institutions of higher education, just because it suits politicians to lump them all together to derive electoral advantage.

Instead OBC candidates should be admitted only if they are not from the ‘creamy layer’ class. To admit OBC students from affluent or dominant households on a preferential basis will definitely arouse caste antagonisms, and generate tension and protests across campus India.

Kalyan Mitra
Kolkata

In EducationWorld you have generously highlighted the initiatives of the Centre for Civil Society (CCS) and also featured me on your cover (EW January 2006). Therefore I feel obliged to share some good news with you.

Delhi’s education minister Arvinder Singh Lovely has abolished the ‘essentiality certificate’ to be obtained by every prospective school promoter in each district. As per the rules, any application for starting a new school had to be accompanied by an ‘essentiality certificate’, granted after an official survey of the needs of the district in which the new school was proposed. So far, there was a fixed cap on the number of essentiality certificates issued per district, varying according to the population.

Now anyone who wants to start a new school can do so, regardless of the number of schools existing in a district. Of course, the proposed school will have to meet the other basic criteria — budget, teaching staff, structured transportation and registration with the land agency concerned. Thus an archaic and strangling school licensing system is finally buried. Delhi is setting a great precedent and hopefully the other states will follow.

The Education Choice Campaign of CCS has been arguing against the essentiality certificate rule for a long time. Although they are slow, the wheels of government do indeed turn. Rejoice!

Parth Shah
President CCS
Delhi

I entirely agree with the advice dispensed by Suchismita Srinivas in your Teacher-to-Teacher page (EW May) that children should be encouraged to understand rather than memorise curriculum content. Indeed it’s high time the teachers community begins to take a broader view of education.

A good education system should consist of academic training, personality development and development of latent talents in every child. The aim of education should be disciplining emotions, building character and developing the vocational interests of students.

Swami Vivekananda once remarked "Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man." Therefore education should be a journey of discovery of the mind which has infinite latent knowledge. The most important goal of good education should be development of personality and character through the teaching of moral values. The time has come for drastic changes in the present education system

Your editorial ‘Indefensible subsidisation of IIM students’ (EW April) sparks a timely debate on the unwarranted subsidisation of IIM students. Statistics apart, it is undeniable that most business management students across the country are from elite or upper-middle class households. For them, tuition fees hardly matter when it comes to pursuing their favoured career.

Hence tuition subsidisation of all IIM students is a luxury rather than necessity. Besides banks — both public and private — are ready and willing to offer them study loans because they know such loans will surely yield profit. Therefore it is beyond the common man’s understanding why the Central government subsidises their education. It’s often the case that a foreign placed B-school graduate earns in a month what a postgraduate from a university painfully accumulates in a year.

Therefore it’s time the government gives serious thought to this issue. Subsidisation of all IIM students is unacceptable, no exceptions. Instead the Central and state governments should subsidise the education of the genuinely needy in other institutions who have uncertain employment prospects. This is the formula for attaining equality.

Arun Dash
Hyderabad