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EDUCATION: BIHAR UNIVERSITIES
And The Tale Goes On...
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FIRST TO THIRD: When Neera
Singh, who had topped the Magadha University in 1992, went to
collect her degree and medal in 1998, she learnt she had been
placed third.
FREE FOR ALL: In Patna's
A.N. College, 435 students appeared for the examinations in 1993
on the basis of admit cards issued directly by the universities.
BACK DOOR ENTRY: Blank
admission forms signed by principals are kept for students who
seek the academic mafia's help.
CASH AND CARRY: Some colleges
run like profit centres. Degrees are available on a "cash"
basis. Such colleges normally cater to students from Punjab, Haryana
and Rajasthan.
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IN BETTER TIMES: Rabri and Pande
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According to the
report, the Magadha University fulfilled Sikha Gupta's seemingly inexhaustible
wish-list. Among other things, it allowed her to take an examination without
charging her the examination fee, granted a first class degree without
her writing seven out of eight papers, and appointed her a lecturer in
a law college. According to rules, either a lecturer candidate should
have a Master's degree in law or should be a member of the bar for seven
years. She had neither. Nath's report points out that apart from some
university officials and teachers, as many as three successive vice-chancellors-Justice
S.C. Mukherjee, Ziauddin Ahmad and B.N. Rawat-vied with each others to
please the Guptas.
The report has also cast aspersions on a few
Raj Bhavan officials. Doubts on their integrity deepened when Pande refused
permission for the prosecution of the four accused, including two former
and incumbent vice-chancellors, for alleged complicity in the Gupta case.
As a result, a division bench of the Patna High Court on June 19 ordered
that Pande should also be made party in the case.
In the past, a couple of vice-chancellors, including
Dr Abdul Moghani of the L.N. Mithila University in Darbhanga district,
have been arrested on corruption charges. But a chancellor's office being
suspected of having links with the "underworld" is unprecedented.
Besides debasing Pande's image, the report has made some shocking disclosures
(See box). The underworld obviously knows the value of keeping government
officers in good humour: either by conferring degrees on high-ranking
civil servants or by appointing their wives as lecturers. Such instances
abound. S. Ahmad, an IAS officer who is now a joint secretary at the Centre,
walked off with a PhD degree in economics. This despite the fact that
his Master's degree in English literature, not economics, made him ineligible
to take the degree. He was not even registered with the university.
In another instance, a vice-chancellor is reported
to have manipulated exam results to ensure that his daughter and daughter-in-law
secured the highest position in the MA examinations. In yet another instance,
the investigation team reported a vice-chancellor, who had the status
of a reader, utilising his position to promote himself and his friends
as university professors. The rot is not confined to one or two universities.
Nath has revealed that evaluation centres in
the state are being "auctioned" to help students sponsored by
the underworld secure results of their choice. Some universities also
hand out doctorates in hundreds and thousands, while many candidates get
themselves simultaneously registered for multiple PHDs. The investigation
team was flooded with complaints, written and oral, about the goings on
in several universities across the state. Nath, however, said, "What
we are giving here is only a typology of corruption and academic malpractices,
not any specific case."
University degrees in Bihar have indeed become
an academic farce, with successive vice-chancellors, bureaucrats and politicians
thriving on its continuity-reason enough for Nath to conclude that the
(Bihar) society itself seems bent on "de-educating" itself.
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