China Nurtures College Excellence, India Promotes Quota

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The Centre’s move to reserve 10 per cent seats in jobs and educational institutions has been flayed by well-known columnist S A Aiyar, regretting that when China is aiming for college excellence, India is focussed on quotas.

Highlighting the appalling state of education in the country, he wondered how could India aspire to become a super power when barely 50 per cent of class V students and 73 per cent in class VIII cannot read a class II text. He was referring to the latest Annual Status of Education Report.

“…the higher educational debate in India is dominated by the provision of quotas for sundry castes. State after state has moved in this direction, and the latest constitutional amendment aims at a new 10% quota in private as well as government colleges.

“No political party attaches any priority to merit or excellence. We have a lobby for every caste, but none for excellence. In such a milieu, excellence will wither while quotas proliferate,” he said in his column in the Times of India.

As columnist Gurcharan Das has pointed out, China’s success owes much to its emphasis on meritocracy. Its high-quality educational system has driven relentlessly to catch up with the West, and now produces world-class academic output. China has not just surged ahead of India but created hi-tech world champions, such as Huawei in 5G telecom, and BYD in batteries. China is the world’s largest producer of solar cells, aluminium and steel. India meanwhile has not produced a single global champion or become a global power in a single new field in the last decade, he lamented.