Education mafia scripts a bleak future for youth

From a profitable business to a well-organised mafia network, the criminalisation of secondary education in Uttar Pradesh has reached an all-time high.

From a profitable business to a well-organised mafia network, the criminalisation of secondary education in Uttar Pradesh has reached an all-time high. While everyone is busy talking politics before the Assembly elections, the ongoing board examination is silently generating an army of 8220;educated-fools8221;.

Recently, in a surprise inspection, S Krishna, BDO, entered one of the examination centres in the city to find invigilators dictating answers to the students. Krishna stayed on in the centre and described the scene: 8220;For the remaining two hours, none of the examinees was able to write a word. It not only convinced me that the teachers were dictating the answers but also made me sad. I8217;m sure that most of these students will either fail or end up with grace marks in the subject,8221; added Krishna. This is just one example.

Over the years, a parallel system has developed here that takes care of getting the student admitted in a school, arranging for his full attendance without he actually attending, managing his percentage right from third division to first division 8212; all that they want in exchange of proper payment. This set-up is so strong that people running it are termed as 8216;education mafias8217;. It includes school managers, officials of the education department and even teachers.

Sushil Tripathi, superintendent of an examination centre, compelled two examinees to bring their original admit cards to the examination centre. On the third day, they disclosed that a school manager had promised to make them appear as regular students in return for Rs 4,500. Since the students could not pay the entire amount, they were given photocopy of the original admit cards.

Interestingly, these days school managers are training teachers in the art of cheating to match the rising demand.

On April 2, a flying squad lead by Vikas Srivastava, Inspector of Schools, caught invigilators who were hiding study materials. Another flying squad lead by SV Singh caught an invigilator trying to run away from the centre on seeing the squad approaching. An FIR was lodged against him when it was found that he was a fake invigilator and was there to facilitate cheating.

In Lucknow, 54 such invigilators have been removed from duty and FIRs have been lodged against 18 teachers for undertaking unfair means during examination. 8220;It would not be right to call them teachers, these are businessmen and criminals. This time, such 8216;education mafias8217; are expected to make business worth Rs 2 crore in one district. This business will only flourish in the next year,8221; said RP Mishra, President of Secondary Teachers Association.

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Explaining the difficulty in nabbing them, Srivastava said: 8220;Parents, students, teachers, managers, principal, everyone is involved in this.8221;