The examination paper leak of CBSE’s prestigious All-India Pre-Medical Test may occasion shock but it does not surprise. Ever since the outing of the Common Admission Test (CAT) paper became public knowledge last December, leaks of school, college and entrance test papers have become an unedifying constant in our daily diet of news. The ministry of human resource development was quick to respond to the CAT crisis. It used it as a handy tool to try and bludgeon the entire IIM system into submission. In the process, the primary concern — that of ensuring a transparent and effective entrance examination regime to millions of anxious students in the country — went almost completely unaddressed in policy terms. A ministry that spent several hundred hours determinedly undermining the autonomy of a handful of professionally-run institutions, had — apart from the arrests of a few scamsters — precious little to account for in terms of entrance test reform.HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi is an expert at reeling out statistics of how his ministry has revolutionised education and literacy in this country. Yet, if the truth is to be told, his years in office have seen education, as a sector, come under the grip of the mafia as never before and educational institutions register ever declining levels of professionalism. The burgeoning of coaching centres charging outrageous rates, the seats-for-cash scandals and the mushrooming of “universities” with no facilities worth the name, all speak of the general decay and dereliction. The latest scandal, involving an institution that comes under the direct supervision of the government, is of a piece with the general decline in standards.It would be unfair, of course, to pin the entire blame for these developments on the HRD ministry. There are numerous complex factors at work. The fact that the demand for seats in educational institutions far outstrips supply is itself a potent source of corruption, as desperate parents and students are prepared to go to any lengths to perform well in an examination and secure that all-important seat. But it would not be unfair to state for the record that the HRD ministry has not risen to the challenge of the times and attempted a thorough reform of the process. Could this be because such backroom slogging — of setting up systems, shoring up autonomy, empowering professionals to do their job, bringing in economic reform — does not yield demonstrable political dividends? Since education is also about introspection, perhaps Minister Joshi should set aside some time in these days of election campaigning to do precisely this.
