Fake degrees

The alarming scams and scandals tumbling out of some of the 17 private universities that have come up in Himachal Pradesh in the past decade are a pointer to the grim possibility that these institutes are nothing more than cheating shops set up to make a quick buck by conning gullible youth and their parents. That the founder of Manav Bharti University, Solan, should be implicated by the University Grants Commission in the sale of over five lakh fake degrees is particularly disturbing. Making matters worse is the delay by the authorities concerned to get to the bottom of the scandal and take punitive action.

Unethical practices in the field of education must be taken note of with urgency so as to enable a progressive socio-economic ecosystem. Rigorous norms expected of an institute of higher learning are in place. These rules are designed to ensure that the universities are nothing short of ‘temples’, out of whose portals emerge students armed with the highest standards of learning and proficiency. To keep them in check, regulatory bodies have been constituted and penal measures adopted. If under such exacting conditions, there should be a likelihood of youngsters flooding the job market with fake degrees, it speaks lowly of the proper enforcement of policies.

In the light of the damning performance audit report of HP private universities by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) for 2016-17, there is indeed much to be done to clean the Augean stables. The task is Herculean as the rot runs deep. The CAG observed that while considering applications for the establishment of private universities, the prescribed guidelines were not adhered to as ‘no objective or quantifiable criteria/benchmarks/norms were prescribed for the assessment of source of finance, experience of the sponsoring body in the field of teaching and research and the potentiality of the proposed courses keeping in view the need and demand.’ Compounding the situation was the HP Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Commission being understaffed and failing to hold regular inspections to check irregularities. The authorities need to sit up before things spiral out of hand.

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