Career

Alma Matters

www.6bridges.com on 24-May-08

Corruption, as a disease, is nothing new to our country. We breakfast reading the dirtiest of corruption stories in the crisp morning newspapers and dine with the news anchors serving us the latest graft scandals. But, in recent times, a couple of articles published in the print media regarding corruption charges leveled against the Director of VJTI has certainly come as a rude shock to its widespread alumni in particular and the academia in general.

Education, for most Indians, is regarded as the passport to economic well being and educational institutes, therefore, are deemed to be nothing less than temples of education. So, when a prestigious institute is told to be plagued with the disease of corruption at the highest level of authority, one cannot help but protest – how many educational institutes are we prepared to let die before we kill the disease?

When the financial irregularities and academic indiscipline fostering at VJTI was first brought to light by the Times of India, not many actually believed that something so unscrupulous and immoral could happen at an educational institute of such stature. But once an independent inquiry set up by the State Government confirmed the perilous situation the institute was in, the education ministry and the state administration must have swiftly acted to hold those responsible to justice. It is almost two weeks since the State Minister Mr. Dilip Walse-Patil tabled the report in the Vidhan Sabha, but we see no signs of action on the part of VJTI management or state administration. Hope floats.

It needs to be clearly understood that this crises is not limited to VJTI alone. These are actually the symptoms of the wider malaise spreading fast into our educational system. All those who are sitting back thinking that this has not and will not happen to my institute are actually living in a fool’s paradise. The very fact that the head of a renowned institute has been implicated in corruption cases and shows no signs of stepping down reveals that a dangerous trend of non-accountability and rampant flouting of fiduciary responsibility has seeped in. If the trend continues unabated, very soon (if not already) we will have other engineering colleges and management schools infected with a similar disease. How long are we going to wait before we wake up?

While the primary responsibility of running an educational institute lies with the institute management and state administration, there are two factions of academia which need to take equal blame for this sorry state of affairs.

Firstly, the teaching staff at the educational institutes needs to proactively act in the interest of safe-guarding the highest standards of educational excellence. Corruption, by any means, should be the last thing to be associated with an educational institute. It is here that the students learn why corruption is harmful and that it needs to be fought with the weapons of uprightness and courage. But, what will the students learn if the teachers themselves are alleged to be corrupt? And, by being a mute spectator, are not other teachers in a way abetting the crime? Teachers from all institutes should come together and raise their united voice against any such wrong doings which harm the collective educational framework of the country. Ultimately, the country’s leaders are developed not in sophisticated factories but in simple classrooms. Moreover, it is every student’s and teacher’s fundamental right to enjoy a corruption-free educational system.

Secondly, the alumni of the institute also have their fair share of blame. While many of us will burn the midnight oil to do whatever possible to get admission to a renowned institute, the same level of commitment is found wanting when the institute is going through a crisis. As alumni, we owe it to the alma mater by trying our best in helping the institute tide over the crisis. If all of us end up “using” the institute only to help us go abroad for higher studies or pocket fat-paying jobs, soon the institute will start to “decay”. In case of VJTI, the cases of corruption are the ominous signs of such decay. So, alumni of all engineering and management institutes must join hands to save our eminent educational institutes from further decay. We cannot sit back and wait for “others” or the “system” to do the job. Neither can we restrict our responsibility to our institutes only. We need to unite and ensure that our voice is heard by the powers that be and that each of our alma mater is cured of the evil diseases like corruption.

Mangesh Sakharam Lalita Ghogre, an alumnus of VJTI and NMIMS, is a freelance writer.