Merit- To honour or not honour ?

The academicians are predictably divided over the knotty issue of acknowledging the achievements of the meritorious students in the Board Examinations. This to be or not to be remains unresolved and debated ad infinitum ad nauseum. It is, however, not known in whose invaluable brain this grand idea has germinated. Though it is still a mystery as to who mooted this lofty proposal, it unfortunately has so many enthusiastic supporters. Some of the State Boards like Kerala etc have readily implemented this weird idea without much debate and discussions as if with a vengeance and with an ulterior motive to demotivate the students. This weird idea appears to have stemmed from the misconception that the merit belongs to the rich and the influential. Precisely due to this reason the states like Kerala grabbed the perceived pro-poor proposal without any public outcry.
There is no second opinion that the disadvantaged students and those who scored less in the exams should not be demoralized on account of their low score. But this does not gave any mandate to the authorities to hold in low esteem the efforts of those students who scored highest marks after burning a lot of midnight oil. If this is the logic then this is a cruel joke played on the meritorious students for being so. And, moreover, what good this will do to the less meritorious students is merely being debated in the academic circles.
The Indian education scene has been passing through a transition. Dramatic changes are taking place in this area notwithstanding the Government’s Thughlak Reforms and without its knowledge and approval thanks to the neo-liberalisation. Today even a 20-page prospectus costs you not less than 500 Rupees which used to be the total tuition fees in some of the best colleges just a few years ago. The over-zealous governments do not have time or inclination to focus their attention on such genuine problem of astronomically rising cost of education affecting the poor more seriously. They, however, have ample time to implement so-called educational reforms which are both unwarranted and avoidable just to please the gallery which is already half-empty.