ICSE, CBSE students bagged only 3% of FYJC seats last year

MUMBAI: A government affidavit, submitted in court in the 90:10 quota case, states that ICSE and CBSE students constitute barely 3% of the students who got an FYJC seat last year.
Figures accessed by TOI show that the fight is really over specific streams in a few top colleges in the city and SSC students do not really have to sit out of FYJC because of ICSE and CBSE students.
Consider the figures: of the 2.48 lakh seats available in the colleges in the Mumbai Metropolitan region last year, only 6,565 seats (3.38%) went to CBSE and ICSE students. Even among the list of top eight colleges provided by the state in its affidavit (Jai Hind, HR, KC, Ruia, Ruparel, Mithibai, St Xavier's and NM), which together hold 10,134 seats, only 2,208 or 21% were claimed by CBSE and ICSE students. Experts say the devil is in the details or, in this case, a few popular streams.
For instance, D G Ruparel College has a total 1,310 seats in the three streams it offers. But its science stream has 600 seats and of those, just 180 are available in the open category. According to the data, while 80 ICSE/CBSE students (44.44%) got into this college's science stream last year, the number stood at 105 (58.33%) in 2007.
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`Merit can't be sole criteria'
The state government in a startling claim before the HC said that merit could not be the sole criteria for admissions to colleges. Senior advocate K K Singhvi, counsel for the state, attempted to draw a parallel between the college admissions and the judiciary, pointing out that even judges to the Supreme court are appointed on the basis of an unspoken regional quota. "Merit cannot be applied every where,'' said Singhvi.
The state was at pains to show that SSC board and the CBSE/ICSE boards were different entities. "Two unequal groups cannot be treat equally,'' said Singhvi. To prove its stand that SSC adopts tougher standards for its exams, the state submitted marks obtained by ICSE students in the HSC exams. The list purportedly showed that ICSE students got on an average 15% less marks in their HSC exams.
The state also said that minority-run institutions in the city would get a free hand for the 50% seats reserved for the community. The 90:10 formula would be applied to the remaining seats.
The state was, however, silent on private unaided institutions.