At a time when rhetoric rules the roost, there is no room for an appraisal of reality (“Where accountability is not institutional,” Jan.8). IIT-Bombay has been ranked 222 this year in the QS World University Rankings 2014-15, and is also India’s leading university in the same rankings. Another fact is that India also has a very low number of patents published vis-à-vis other countries. All this must be seen in the light of the government of the day saying it is committed to efficiency, accountability and transparency in education, innovation and skill development. When accountability is not institutionalised, autonomy is not distributed and transparency is not ensured, the natural corollary will be a decline in the standards of research, poor quality of education and corruption. Universities will then become factories churning out unproductive citizens.
K.S. Kumar,Hyderabad
I have completed my graduation from a university in Madhya Pradesh. A trick to clear an examination was to write answers giving as much unnecessary material as possible including repeating sentences. This was because some professors were not concerned about what was written but how long the answer was, based on which marks were awarded. There were also books of questions available in the market which ensured certainty about what questions would come up in tests.
Kamlaksh Jha, Bhopal
