By T.J.S. George

Education in India is in tatters because of horrendous corruption. This is making the country wobble like a skyscraper detached from its foundations. The authorities ignore the crisis because they are themselves either the destroyers or protectors of the destroyers. Frauds and scoundrels have been having such a field day that it is difficult to imagine the country rising to its potential in the foreseeable future. So much for our glorified development.

How can there be any kind of development when examination papers are routinely leaked, copying becomes a cottage industry as in Bihar, admissions are based on bribes and colleges and examiners are, to a large extent, fake? Cheats have invaded even the army. In Mumbai, recently question papers of the army recruitment examinations, supplied by insiders, were made available to aspirants at Rs. 2 to Rs. 5 lakh per head. Forged domicile certificates were also on sale if a candidate wanted to appear in another examination centre. Investigators said the racket had been going on for two years — which means battalion-size numbers of unworthy recruits might already be wearing army uniforms.

How many unworthy recruits who got fake medical degrees from fake medical colleges must be there in our hospitals? The Medical Council of India, the supreme controlling authority, was dissolved in 2010 because of corruption. President Ketan Desai was arrested. But the influential Desai remains active while government announcement of creating a new controlling body remains on paper.

Remember the biggest scandal of them all was the Madhya Pradesh Government’s Vyavsayik Pariksha Mandal, tasked with conducting eligibility tests for medical colleges and government jobs. It was manipulated for so long that thousands of unqualified people became doctors and government servants. So powerful were the manipulators that, after the story broke in 2013, at least 48 people were killed, mostly witnesses, and a journalist who had started investigating the story? Were the guilty punished? Are the Vyapam examinations clean today? Keep guessing.

We all know the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education, ICSE, is the prized class X examination conducted by more than 2,000 schools in the country. But the Intermediate Council of Schooling Education is also ICSE. Their website offers not only Class X pass but also degrees from MBBS to BL, from B.Sc to B.Com. The Police busted the racket in 2014. The racket reconstituted itself in different formats.

Kerala is currently scandalised by private colleges not only fleecing students but also beating them up as routine practice. A “Law University” had shed its original backers and become a family-controlled business with the chief organiser’s daughter becoming the Principal. Women students, unable to tolerate the Principal’s high handedness and caste insults, launched an agitation that attracted massive public support. The Principal was forced to resign. But the support extended by the ruling communist leaders to the college’s owning family casts doubts on whether the widely-detested Principal is really gone or is only having a holiday.

A student “committed suicide” in another private college. Students went on strike saying it was murder. They said the college had a special torture room where any student who raised questions about the college’s affairs was given appropriate treatment. The Chairman of the college was arrested and bailed out. Two others charged with torture are at large. Again, the Government is on the side of the college which ensures that inquiries are getting nowhere. All this in a State once reputed for its high level of education and its model colleges.

In Vellore last month, the Chairman of the GGR College of Engineering, G.G. Ravi, was hacked to death by a gang armed with sickles. Apparently Ravi’s family had a long-running war with a known rowdy Mahalingam. In September 2015, Mahalingam had tried to kill Ravi, but Ravi escaped while his sons chased Mahalingam and stoned him to death. The gang finally took its revenge — which is all fine, but what have people of this kind got to do with colleges of engineering and stuff?

Plenty. Gangsters have turned to education because tens of thousands of youngsters are out there seeking jobs. They are easy prey. Education of some quality is the foundation without which no country can progress. If education at the government and private levels is taken over by racketeers and torturers and killers, all patronised by corrupt politicians and civil servants, what hope is there for the country? Human history, said H.G.Wells, becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.

Not much of a race for us, is it?

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