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The article titled “IITs: Quality only because of exclusivity” (is one of the most perceptive and topical essays one has come across in recent times. If India is to play a significant role in the world, it can do it only through promoting and building up quality education. It is true that the masses of the people who have been denied educational opportunities so far have to be given the means to be educated.

The experience of the last 50 years has shown that this cannot be done only through reservation or mainly through affirmative discrimination aimed at equal opportunities. This goal also can be achieved only through emphasis on quality. Apart from lifting up the masses, the select few who are gifted with special talent and intellectual merit have to be identified, and enabled to shine in a group which honours exclusivity.

Our educational goals and system have to be liberated from the deadening grip of vote-bank politics. The lead that the article has taken courageously, perceptively and convincingly, it is hoped, will be followed by other intellectuals and educators.

E. X. Joseph Kochi

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