Recently, a vice-chancellor of a state university was arrested for allegedly taking bribes to appoint someone to the post of an assistant professor. The day the news broke, a friend asked me whether I was shocked. I replied, “I was neither surprised nor shocked. Rather, I was happy that an official holding a key position in an educational institution has been caught red-handed while accepting bribes. All along people have discussed and debated academic corruption prevalent in the country. Now there is proof of someone taking bribes. It may open the eyes of the academia to see the dirty reality and raise their voice against the culture of academic corruption in the country.”
Stories such as “academics” paying crores of rupees in bribes to get vice-chancellor posts, research supervisors demanding money to help their scholars get PhD degrees, teachers working in government schools and colleges offering bribes to politicians, bureaucrats, and others to get transfers to the places of their choice, candidates paying lakhs of rupees to get teaching posts, and cronyism and nepotism playing a dominant role in faculty appointments and promotion, politicians interfering in the affairs of educational institutions, vital nexus between corrupt politicians and university officials, and so on, are not unheard of. Heard stories are bitter and those unheard could be more bitter. It is deeply rooted in the minds of people that the academia in India is corrupt. The common people have always believed that money power wins and mind power loses in the race. Shame!
No place for merit
Does corruption affect the quality of education in the country? Yes, it does. As the saying goes, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Corrupt people holding top positions will focus more on making money than on providing quality education. Expecting such people to bring about reforms in the education system is like expecting a rooster to lay eggs. In corrupt academic systems, merit has no place. As long as corruption rules academia, qualified and talented people will be driven out.
Those who offer massive bribes to get teaching positions will try to make more money in many ways by demanding bribes from their scholars and students for their “noble services” such as helping the scholars publish plagiarised research papers and awarding marks generously to undeserving students. It is a cyclical process.
Corruption breeds corruption. As a result, the quality of education and research will continue to be eroded. Any system that is rife with bribery and corruption will ruin the nation. Not only those who receive but also those pay bribes are corrupt. Let us assume that a teacher says, “If I hadn’t bribed the authorities, I would not have got the job. I was helpless.” Should we consider the teacher innocent? No. I would say that the particular teacher is also part of the corruption mafia.
Because of such dishonest teachers, many talented and meritorious candidates are unable to get the jobs they deserve.
It is unlikely that those who paid bribes to get their teaching positions come out and say #MeToo and share their stories. It will be great if some teachers openly share their #ITooBribed stories. PhD scholars who have been victims of corrupt supervisors should share their #MeToo stories. The need of the hour is to name and shame people who accepted bribes and misused their power. We need to start a movement against corruption in Indian academia.
How many of us have the courage to speak about the corrupt practices that are prevalent in the country? How many of us have the intellectual courage to question the corrupt education system? How many of us are really interested in improving the quality of education in the country?
Brazilian thinker and educator Paulo Freire, in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed , says that “Our advanced technological society is rapidly making objects of us and subtly programming us into conformity to the logic of its system to the degree that this happens, we are also becoming submerged in a new ‘Culture of Silence’.”
It is true that the teaching community is becoming submerged in the culture of silence. Any country that turns a deaf ear to academic corruption will not be able to provide quality education. We need to educate India to break the culture of silence. Culture of academic corruption will lead to culture of violence if sincere efforts are not made to cleanse the system. Are we ready to act before silence turns into violence?
The author is academic, columnist and freelance writer. rayanal@yahoo.co.uk
