PU at crossroads

CHANDIGARH, June 1: At a meeting of the Punjab University senate last month, a senator from Hoshiarpur, D.V. Arya got up, folded his hands a...

CHANDIGARH, June 1: At a meeting of the Punjab University senate last month, a senator from Hoshiarpur, D.V. Arya got up, folded his hands and remarked quot;Is university ko bacha lo, yeh university bihar ki university jaisi banti jaa rahi haiquot;.

Some senators greeted the comment with cynicism, while others thumped the desk at his oratory. But nobody had an inkling of what was to happen in the university a month later. Perhaps the first time in Punjab University, the question papers of an examination were leaked and sold for a price. Even the worst critics of the university would claim that even though questions have been raised on the quality of research in the university, the examination system of the university has been above board.

However, when on May 25, copies of a handwritten question paper were procured on the campus and published in the press, the university reacted quickly, cancelling the examination of the final year of honours in Mathematics and ordering an inquiry.

Already reeling under criticism in the fossil controversy which cast a shadow on the veracity of research being conducted in the university, PU now faces a shock from which it will take time to recover.

The immediate damage control exercise of cancellation of the papers and institution of an inquiry led to lessening of the shock. However, there are others who are not satisfied. Prof D.C. Saxena of the Department of English, who earlier sat on a dharna demanding a probe in university expenditure, is now demanding a quot;judicial inquiryquot; into the incident which he says is required to quot;restore public confidence and credibility of this once-prestigious universityquot;. The cancellation of papers, is according to him quot;indicative of the murky goings-onquot; in the department.

A senator and member of the university Unfair Means Committee, Kehar Singh, observes that the examination branch functions according to the principle of quot;collective responsibilityquot;, and the entire chain from paper setting to paper distribution should be analysed before suggesting corrective measures. He suggests quot;reduction in the number of levels at the examination branch so that responsibility can be fixedquot;.

A part of the blame, however, also lies on the politicisation of the administrative block with different officials aligning themselves with some senators. So widespread is the politicisation that the appointment of a senior official at PU led to a series of dharnas and protests by university staff.

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The six year delay in appointment of a regular university registrar by the previous Vice-Chancellor is also touted as a reason for slippages in the administrative block. But, others are not pessimistic. The present V-C, Prof M.M. Puri is regarded as a man of action. In fact it is not his lack of action but for overdoing things for which he faces criticism. Sources close to the V-C state that the university would not stop at mere cancellation of papers.

quot;The examination system remains a strong point of the university. The university will ensure that this strong point is not lost,quot; states Sanjiv Tewari, official spokesman of the university.

Students of the department, however, allege that the practice is widespread. They show copies of representations to the university, some submitted last year also, to stress the point that availability of question papers was never an issue. quot;An overconfident university thought that this could not happen in their university,quot; a student remarked. quot;Some fellow students openly state that they need not attend classes and study due to the availability of question papers,quot; another student added.

The recent incident also suggests that examination reforms are overdue. The report of examination reforms committee, a baby of the present V-C, which was submitted a couple of months earlier and has been lying in cold storage for some time, needs to be reopened and implemented.