Opinion Graft in education ecosystem must be curbed. We owe it to the youth

Regulators have, by the nature of their work, opportunities for corruption. Someone breaks the rule and someone is expected to bring them to book. This is either done or not done for a price. The cycle is difficult to break when the stakes get higher. That said, is corruption an economic phenomenon which is judged on ethical grounds? AICTE, before the reforms, was often seen as steeped in systemic corruption that included conflicting incentives, discretionary and monopolistic powers, lack of transparency, and a culture of impunity. These stemmed from weaknesses in due processes, which some institutions exploited. New processes were developed with checks and balances and these were hard-coded into an e-governance system. The AICTE had a large contingent of employees who were on deputation, while the rest were entrenched in the old ways. This combination erased institutional memory on the one hand and encouraged impunity on the other. At AICTE, everyone on deputation was replaced and the permanent staff transferred. These decisions came at a price, with threats both personal and professional. Today, the AICTE and the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) enjoy a fair degree of credibility. The system is still not fool proof and securing it against corruption remains a work in progress. However, other regulatory agencies, especially in the education system, could still do well to learn from AICTE’s experience.

Is corruption limited only to government establishments? There are any number of private companies that indulge in corruption. This is not a question of your corruption vs my corruption. The issue is a lack of values in the people who run the systems. That said, the government — with transparency and good governance as its supreme tenets — must lead the way to prevent all forms of corruption.

The pressure to succeed today is immense. Technology can be a leveller. But it can only do so much. That’s why the reforms initiated more than a decade ago require follow-up today, especially because society places a premium on education like never before. Our education system has done well to produce entrepreneurs, politicians, doctors, engineers, artists and actors. Even then, it is time to re-imagine it by keeping values in focus.

At times, corruption is hidden in our societies. All parties want to keep their transactions secret. For some, it could be doing someone “a friendly turn”, for others it could be just minor “misbehaviour”. Different people understand corruption differently. Incidents of corruption lead to calls for reform. However, reforms can only result from paradigm shifts.

How to effect this paradigm shift in the education ecosystem? The realisation that corruption is bad and must be dealt with is a good starting point. Second is to understand the political economy of the system. Agencies like NAAC and NBA must realise that the stakes are high for the management running these institutes. They raise the fees based on better rankings and hence, they will do whatever it takes. After all, rankings translate into hundreds of crores each admission year, not to speak of the sale of so-called “management seats”.

The NAAC’s proposed binary accreditation may be an answer. However, it tends to gloss over the finer aspects of quality and puts everyone at an equal disadvantage. There is also the problem of visiting expert teams who are expected to verify the claims. This is a huge starting point for corruption. Data uploaded to the site instantly, verified through third parties and legacy data, with discrepancies flagged instantly, is an idea worth exploring. DigiLocker, a secure cloud-based platform for the storage, sharing and verification of documents and certificates, provides access to authentic digital documents to the citizen’s digital document wallet. Why not make it mandatory for every institute to upload all their documents, both academic and administrative, that can be used as primary sources for verification?

The Mexican economist Angel Gurría, who was OECD secretary-general between 2016 and 2021, framed the problem aptly. “Integrity, transparency and the fight against corruption have to be part of the culture. They have to be taught as fundamental values,” he said. By all accounts, individual action has proved insufficient to target systemic corruption. Experts like Gurría have, therefore, emphasised collective action. However, whatever the method, it will be naïve to expect that corruption will disappear from society. Our efforts must be to rein it in and protect the vulnerable. Keeping the education system free of controversy is a critical pre-requisite for catering to the needs of an aspirational society. The costs of corruption are paid by the taxpayer. The costs of corruption in the education system are paid by the country’s youth.

Corruption may be as old as human history. However, regulatory heads and vice-chancellors ought to lead by example. That could be the precursor to systemic change.

The writer is former chairman, AICTE