Session's in full swing now. As I walk through the corridors a happy mix of lectures and gossip sounds, that fills the humid air and makes a morning worth plodding through. Soon, enough the culturals would start and the atmosphere will become almost festive.

Every morning i ask myself and sometimes my collegues what this college education in social sciences has to offer to students especially girls in these small middling towns. At one level i feel girls colleges offer that space for expression to girls that would otherwise be denied in such towns.

On the other hand i feel it takes away three productive years from the life of young people without giving them much except a degree. This is so because most colleges are ill equipped to either educate or enlighten whatever one may consider their aim to be. In small towns girls or for that matter boys do not have the career opportunities or exposure that city youngsters have. Girls have limited time on their hands. They are pushed into marriage even before they finish college. I have lost so may good students in this manner.

So, does our average college education offer anything worthwhile to a girl student in these limited three years that she has? As long as higher education is treated at par with basic education, that is opening colleges to offer basic degrees indiscriminately and without facilities, institutions will continue to be a place to spend three precious years. Not even the degree has any meaning, as the student will end up appyling for a job that needs only SSC as a requirement.

On a positive note, in my few years in the college i have seen the cut offs and pass percentages ise steadily. Also i have seen more and more rural girls and those from erstwhile uneducated communities make it to the merit list.