Hindi movies have made a mockery of our higher education system. Being intellectual is akin to being a nerd, unfit for any serious purpose. Scholarship is well nigh dead in our country. Mediocrity has given way to meritocracy. General stream students are often resigned to low-end jobs or see their college degrees as tickets to an MBA or Mass Communications courses. The number of PhDs in India is declining and due to some bad measures by the University Grants Commission, the condition of our higher educational system is surely going to decline further. Much is written about student unrest in colleges but unless we have excellent teachers, our country will not be able to attract best talents to higher education in the general sciences and the humanities.

The apex body controlling higher education in India has made the National Eligibility Test or NET, optional for aspiring college and university Lecturers. It suffices to only have an MPhil or a PhD.Earlier one had to clear the NET to be able to teach, notwithstanding a PhD. This new rule is detrimental to our country as a knowledge economy. The NET cannot be cleared by most students and thus, our government chooses quantity instead of quality. Better have many teachers than only excellent ones. PhD or an MPhil are research oriented degrees, whereas the NET demands an overall and broader understanding of ones’ chosen subject. Also political compulsions force governments to lower standards. Party cadres in different states have to be accommodated. The UGC mandates that a principal of a college should have a PhD, but the West Bengal government has recently overruled that and demands only 50% marks in the Masters level for becoming the principal of a college. The recent debacle of St.Stephens’s principal is a case in point of what happens if one tries o churn out a PhD.

I provide below two instances of what happens when mediocrity rules the roost and we have bid adieu to merit.

Case I, the classroom of Prof X

Student Laxmi has written a brilliant analysis of the exam topic. Prof X has marked her below par. When Laxmi inquires about the reason for her poor performance, Prof X flies into a rage and calls her an idiot in front of all the other students.
Don’t you know that what you have written is not in the books? How dare you question my abilities? The professor hollers…
Fact is that Prof X has entered the college on the basis of a cut-paste PhD and some political clout. He hardly knows his subject and being mediocre himself has no clue about the finer points in his discipline. Laxmi is now convinced that she is a fool. She despairs and will later just give up on academics. On the other hand Ram, a mediocre student has been marked high by the good professor. He will someday take Prof X’s place and in turn will perpetuate mediocrity.

Case II, interviews for Professorships

Shyam Kedia has just passed his Masters. His dad is a professor. And is an acolyte of the ruling party. Kedia is a mediocre student. His father arranges for him to get published in peer reviewed journals. The interviewer in the examination is Prof Kedia’s friend. The latter had called the former the day before the interview to talk of old times. Rahul Srivastava’s dad is a clerk at the post office. Rahul has a First Class Masters degree. He is competing against Shyam. And we know who will get the job. Don’t we? Rahul has the NET; Kedia has just about turned in a badly written and plagiarized MPhil thesis.

Professors in our country have no accountability and corruption is rampant in the process of selecting teachers. Exam scripts are not corrected properly and private tuitions by teachers have poisoned the education system. Reports are trickling in how researches by eminent professors are just plagiarisms of foreign papers. And thousands of students have seen their marks increase after Calcutta University reviewed their marks. I believe the nerdish teachers are nerdy because they are unfit to teach and encounter life. Those who are indeed suitable to teach in the higher educational institutions are self-actualized individuals, they can never be geeky. It is wrong and detrimental for our nation to lampoon them.

Disclaimer: Not all Professors are teaching by virtue of being favorites of ruling parties or through nepotism. But even if one is there, she can wreak havoc to many students’ lives.