Lucknow: Prof. Rajesh Singh, Former Vice-Chancellor, DDU, Gorakhpur University and senior Professor, BHU has seen the ups and downs of academics from very close quarters. While he is confident that India’s talent pool is second to none, he is however very much of the view that showing them the right direction through a clean system will make India’s education system a cut above the rest.
Having worked in nearly 5 universities in capacity as Vice Chancellor, Prof Rajesh Singh is of the firm view that maximum money in any top of the line University is spent either on the salary or the exam paraphernalia. He says in his personal capacity while serving as VC, he has found that mostly University exam systems are weak and need tough measures. All this to make the entire process fool proof and transparent. He said any Vice Chancellor, Chairman or top level official in the University will always want to conduct exams in the proper manner without any glitches so that the life of the student is not jeopardised.
Talking of the system, Prof Rajesh Singh said by and large in the Indian context, systems are weak which need coercive measures. Citing an example of Gorakhpur, he said even though Gorakhpur is the CM’s bastion, yet in the University there have been cases where malpractices have been reported. This he said even though it is mandatory to have CCTV recording and then the recorded material is submitted to the concerned authorities. Prof Singh says in his personal inspections he reminisces how in many cases the system has been caught off guard. He said in specific numbers that of 200 centres nearly 80% had to withdraw when swift instructions were given to check any kind of malpractice. He said that there were many cases where 3 hours of monitoring was required but the real time monitoring happened for only one hour. He further underlined there were also cases where the institution sighted week internet for the problems that occurred. Prof Rajesh Singh recalled how he had to strictly change districts, in certain cases so as to prevent any kind of malpractice. He said not only were colleges weak in terms of Infra to check any such activities. He pointed out that there is also a strong lobby which includes top officials including the Registrar and the Controller from where the nexus of corruption starts and runs deep down. He said in recent years, cases of Solver gangs and consequent action have revealed how neck deep the system of corruption is.
He also said that now an illegal mafia led system is prevalent where corruption aids the students academic performance through illegal activity. He said there have been many cases where students even though lacking in academic rigour have been able to perform brilliantly in exams. He said in the modern day, it is more of an industry where exams at the Higher Education level are more of a business proposition to mint money. Talking of the growing need to check academic corruption, he said that the root cause of such blatant compromise of education is the growing dependence of students on coaching institutions. He said be it agencies, a centre or a notorious kingpin who operates the network, the overall paper leak mafia is a vicous circle which needs to be monitored and controlled. But even Prof Singh does not deny that the network is too deep for these kind of activities to stop in the near future. He said in India by and large competition is very high and people mostly attempt tough examinations which are Chinese institutions, IIT, UPSC, GRE and SAT.
