70 : 30 , the ratio of foolishness to sanity in our education System

The education board came out with an extremely absurd rule (in the context of our city) over the weekend. That 70% of the seats in a college would be reserved just for the people staying in the zone of the college (i.e. in and around the college) and 30% would be reserved for the students from out of the Zone. This is the most absurd and ridiculous rule that I have seen made by any institution/board for a long time. It surely shows how adept and smart the people running our education system are.

First of all I cannot comprehend why these guys came up with this rule? Isnt the existing reservation for the schedule casts & tribes enough that a new dimension to reservation is trying to be put in place. There doesn't seem any visible advantage for doing this in a place like India. For eg. a zone in the central suburbs of mumbai stretches from Mulund to Sion. Now there are top class colleges like MCC & Kelkar college in Mulund, and other colleges like DAV, Menon, National in Bhandup, Vikas in Vikhroli, Somaya & RJ college in ghatkopar/vidyavihar & SIES in Sion. This covers almost all the major colleges in the central suburbs. But these have been the main colleges for the students from Thane & beyond also. A student from Thane who lives a stones throw distance from MCC in mulund will be at a disadvantage to a student from Sion who lives miles away. And beyond the border of thane, there are hardly any colleges of repute.

What does a student from Thane do in this case. The first list at MCC for commerce closed at 581. The second list closed at 580 for the 30% and at 573 for the remaining 70%. In this highly competitive era, a mark here or there can make or break a students college aspirations.

If the board wants to ape the west and come up with such rules, then there should be an even distribution of colleges across the city & zones. A parity should be maintained in the quality of the colleges across zones. Only then does it make sense to introduce such a rule in a setting like ours. Let us hope that the people in control would understand this soon & act upon the same quickly.