On May 4, in a dramatic late night announcement, Lucknow University cancelled the joint B.Ed entrance exam scheduled to be written by 650,000 aspirants (for 100,000 seats) on May 5 in 12 districts across the state. On the eve of the exam it came to light that the question papers had been leaked in Farukhabad, about 300 km from the state capital Lucknow. Now the B.Ed entrance exam has been re-scheduled for June 19.
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On a tip-off, the police arrested four persons from a cyber café barely 12 hours before the commencement of the examination. The accused were found to be in possession of 600 photocopies of printed question papers of English, Hindi and general knowledge. Four days later on May 8, the police arrested the alleged masterminds — employees of a publication house in Agra where the question papers were printed.
Although somewhat unusually, Lucknow University’s vice chancellor M.K Misra, owning moral responsi-bility, tendered his resignation to governor B.L. Joshi, in an obviously choreographed charade, the latter declined to accept it. On the contrary he praised Misra for introducing some mysterious varsity reforms.
Which is just as well because if a precedent of the head of an academic institution resigning for scams under his watch is established, hundreds if not thousands, of education institu-tions in India’s most populous (180 million) and arguably most lawless state would be headless. Because during the past few decades — and particularly after caste-based political parties including the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the incumbent Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) have begun ruling the state from Lucknow — scams and scandals in education institutions have broken out with tedious regularity.
The most recent major exam paper leak took place on April 21, when a special task force of the UP police busted a gang involved in the theft of question papers of the Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj University, Kanpur. Earlier in 2009, the mathematics and computer science papers of the UP state board’s intermediate examinations were leaked and few students who bought the papers were caught. In May 2009, the Common Law Admission Test was postponed as two boxes carrying test papers were tampered with. As a result, the exam for admission to 11 national law schools was rescheduled. Similarly in April 2008, third year B.Com income tax and accounts question papers of Lucknow University were leaked. A committee was constituted to probe the leak but hasn’t been heard of since.
Beside question paper leakages, almost every year, scores of proxies and impostors are caught writing the entrance examinations for entry into professional colleges. But in most cases, the people arrested are small fish, mainly students lured by the prospect of easy degrees or careers. Although there is every indication that examination-related scams have become a well-organised business run by politically well-connected masterminds, they seem well beyond the reach of the law. Meanwhile, diplomas, certificates and degrees awarded by UP’s 24 universities and 1,637 colleges are losing credibility and value by the day.
Quite obviously in higher education institutions in shining 21st century India’s most populous state, theft and sale of exam papers, campus riots and impersonation is business as usual. Academics which invest students with bankable education and/or marketable skills is secondary.
Vidya Pandit (Lucknow)