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EDUCATION: BIHAR UNIVERSITIES
Bringing To Book
With a little help from the bureaucracy, these
institutions make academics a farce
By Farzand Ahmed
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NOT JUST BUNKING:
Students protest against the state's education policy |
Logic and politics
do not complement each other, not the least in Bihar. A recent decision
by the governor-chancellor, who is otherwise expected to toe the Laloo
Yadav-Rabri Devi line, has not only reinforced this fact but has also
brought the state's "academic underworld" to the fore.
It started with Governor Vinod Chandra Pande,
as chancellor, rejecting outright the panel of 18 names submitted by the
Government for appointment as vice-chancellors in three of the seven universities
in the state. Instead, he asked senior bureaucrats to take charge. That
was not all. Pande asked all the universities to furnish names of their
three senior-most professors to select the respective vice-chancellors.
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A report cites
the existence of an academic underworld where "mutually helpful"
ways are devised by those involved.
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This decision is seen as violating the Patna
University Act and the Bihar State Universities Act, which empower the
chancellor to make such appointments only "in consultation"
with the state government. The reason cited for the rejection of the Government's
nominations is that the list comprised retired bureaucrats and teachers.
But Pande himself is a retired bureaucrat, points out Rashtriya Janata
Dal spokesman Shivanand Tiwary. "The problem is he does not apply
his mind before taking any decision," he added.
The academic world sees it differently. "This
is a result of an ego clash between Laloo and Pande," says Ramjatan
Sinha, president of the Federation of University (Service) Teachers' Association.
They allege that neither of the leaders are concerned about streamlining
the education system in the truncated state. In fact, according to Sinha,
in some universities where bureaucrats have been administrative heads
on an ad-hoc basis, teachers have received salaries for only three-and-a-half
months in the past year. Yet Pande thought the best way to stem the rot
was to bureaucratise the campus.
The Government, however, has now decided to
submit the same panel that had been rejected earlier. And this is being
done in protest, says Sinha.
At the root of the chancellor's decision and
the subsequent reactions from politicians, bureaucrats and teachers is
a recent report that cited the existence of "a seamless world or
an academic underworld where the university, the administration, the politicians,
musclemen-teachers and the education mafiosi are on easy and affordable
terms and keep devising ways to be mutually helpful".
The report was the result of the Patna High
Court directing Manoje Nath, IGP, CID (Economic Offences Wing), to investigate
how Sikha Gupta, wife of the then superintendent of police (Gaya) Anurag
Gupta, got a first class degree without appearing in the post-graduate
examinations of Magadha University in Gaya in 1997. But investigations
revealed much more. The report exposes the influence of the "academic
underworld" on most of the state universities.
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