The British rely very much on the authenticity and credibility of the individuals manning those bodies to give credibility to the institutions. Ours has been a nascent democracy trying to copy that pattern. Corruption is the order of the day in our melieu, whether one admits it or not. While a sizable percentage of society is corrupt, one can not expect these watchdog bodies to have honest people manning them all the time. Consequently corruption has got into the educational field in a big way. Running educational institutions is the best business these days. The latter has no dearth of raw material, no labour problems, no natural hazards, and there seems to be a good market for the finished product. To cap it, the finished product does not have a strict quality control system to face up to. The quality control departments could easily be bought up in the present set up. Any intelligent entrepreneur will want to get into this business.

We see the results daily. There are institutions of higher learning cropping up like mushrooms all over the place. Politicians, with their proclivity for comfort and greed for money bend over backwards to please these educational barons to boost their coffers and advance themselves in the political field. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely is very true in this field as well. The Governmental bodies set up to keep vigil on all these are conniving with the culprits to let them have their way. Permissions are granted by the politicians.The administrators do not either point out the flaws in the system to their bosses for fear of losing their patronage, or are themselves in the pay roll of the educational Mafia. Let us take the example of our centres of higher learning, the temples of our new Gods, the Universities.

Our Universities are called autonomous. They are anything but that, unless one changes the meaning of the word. The act is so designed to give the politicians all the powers to manipulate these august bodies and corrupt them from top to bottom. Most, if not all, the vacancies in the senate and syndicate are filled with the people who run their own private educational institutions or their chamchas. They even go to the extent of having the heads of these Universities appointed at their behest. The whole process of selecting the incumbents is shrouded in secrecy, according to the act, and is left to the whims and fancies of one or two individuals. There is no accountability for the process or for the incumbent. The greatest casualty in the process seems to be honesty and merit, the two most dreaded by the educational Mafia, and their bosses in politics.

A cursory look at the method of selecting the vice-chancellor will speak volumes for the way we run our temples of higher learning. The "so called" search committee has four members, one of whom is the Chairman. Two members are nominated by the university syndicate, one by the chancellor and the last represents the University Grants Commission. The whole melodrama starts here. The university syndicate selects only those who dance to their tune, and if the syndicate is also joined by the out going VC, ( this happens often ) then these two members of the search committee are the choice of the said educational Mafia. The chancellor’s nominee could well be a political choice, as many chancellors happen to be retreaded politicians themselves. Politicians do not retire in India, and the inconvenient one’s are sent to the safety of the expensive Raj Bhavans the poor tax payer maintains with the sweat of his brow, a luxury a poor country could ill afford. The UGC nominee, however well intentioned he is, is in the minority. He/she can only voice the feelings, but it will not count. One retired VC once told me " the names are put there as the politicians want and merit has very little to do with that ." The choice falls on those who are likely to toe the line and sign on the dotted lines rather than on those who think for themselves. The latter will be a hindrance to the well oiled machinery built by the powers that be and their fiscal masters. I have known a few good and honest chancellor’s nominees, but they are easily neutraslised by the chancellor who has the last word anyway.

The working of the evaluation system could be gauged by what happened in one of the famous Universities in 1975 resulting in Indian medical degrees being derecognised in Britain and many other countries abroad. A student who secured 15% marks in final MBBS was given 35% grace marks by the syndicate of that University and all other students got the benefit and many passed that way and went abroad. The said student while working in a British hospital was found to be totally ignorant of even the minimum knowledge in the field. Confidential inquiry by the General Medical Council of UK brought out the facts and the student was deported from that country . The GMC promptly, and rightly so, derecognised the Indian degrees from that day in September 1978. Our Govt.’s response at that time was to reciprocate the gesture and derecognise British degrees. To cut the long story short, an intelligent judge of the Supreme court at that time advised the university to cancel that particular examination and reconduct the same . Any one can find out the depth to which we have sunk in the most important field of education.

Higher education is a privilege that only a small percentage of our youth could aspire for and that has to be of very good quality if the country has to compete in the world for scientific and technological expertise. Indian Universities of yore were the seat of excellence attracting students from all over the world. Today Indian Universities have lost their credibility. If the famous Universities in the West are considered good today it is because they have maintained their high standards in every sphere. There is no compromise at all as far as the quality and credibility are concerned.

America had more than twohundred fifty medical colleges in the early fifties. Many of them were substandard and the then Govt. appointed a special committee to go into all this and the latter recommended only 75 colleges to be of good standard. With one stroke of the pen all the rest were closed down and even today they only have that many colleges. Interestingly except the Medical College of Georgia, most of the colleges and even some of the Universities are in the private sector. We should certainly have private efforts in higher education as the tax payer will not be able to defray the cost of higher education which must be paid for by the recipient either in advance or after he gets employed, in installments. The standards should never be compromised in the bargain.

With corruption having reached Himalayan proportions even in our central Govt. I see very little chance of our lower cadres getting the message. We have one more menace in the educational field. There are brokers who get themselves appointed to these University bodies by political pull. They have no background in education at all except that they are "graduates" of a University. These are the people who really run our Universities. Most of the vice-chancellors are tools in their hands.

Change is possible. We see in Japan many prime ministers of the past are spending their time in jail. We must have accountability in the educational field and take Universities away from the political power structure and make them truly autonomous. The chancellor, if he is not an educationist, should have no say in the affairs of the university, except presiding over the annual convocations as a figure head. I have not been able to logically convince myself of the need for the office of the Governor in our set up in the first place. They are very expensive to the tax payer and what role do they play in the administration could easily be dispensed with. We may have to rehabilitate these politically inconvenient members of the ruling party in power. But they need not be parked in such extravagant waste paper baskets, called the Raj Bhavan, giving the poor tax payer the aura of royalty in his midst. The best slot would be minister without portfolio, where they are less expensive. If an audit is taken of a few of the retired vice chancellors’ performance and their assets, and if found guilty, a few could easily be sent to jail, to send a warning to those sitting in the chair.

Before appointing anybody to that post, a public inquiry should be held about the person’s background, both in the educational field for his excellence and also in the fiscal field for any past misdeeds. Many of their misdeeds do not stand scrutiny in a court of law, as enough evidence may not be forthcoming. Public inquiry would be the ideal alternative, like they have for administrative posts in the US Govt.

The syndicate and the senate of the universities should have no political appointments and there should be a ban on appointing people owning private educational institutions and their agents to these bodies. Educationists of repute, with unsullied reputation should only be appointed after proper selection and intelligence reports. Majority of the seats must be reserved for the faculty by election. No one who has had no touch with the field of education should have any role to play in these bodies. The Govt. should be the last to have a say in the matters of day today running. The grants should be channeled through the University Grants Commission and not through the state Governments. The latter should have no say in running the university at all. The grants must be audited periodically and only those universities of excellence must be allowed to have more grants. The University must also fend for its routine expenses from its own coffers.

Similarly the UGC must also be restructured to eliminate politicians from its ambit. The UGC should have people of exceptional merit as members and they should be made accountable to the proper functioning of the various universities. The rot which has set in at all levels of our educational ladder should be cleaned with a powerful broom. The earlier it is done the better. Many states have not woken up to the appalling state of our universities which bring a bad name to our young men and women who graduate from the portals of these temples of learning. I am not at all surprised that many, if not all, the Indian degrees are looked down upon. Congratulations to our apex court which is using the broom to cleanse the political stable. Can the younger generation look up to them to do a similar exercise in our universities as well !