DESPITE A 28 PERCENT HIGHER budgetary outlay for education (Rs.24,715.19 crore) in 2014-15 and the state government™s commitment to re-building the much-awaited Nalanda University, higher education in Bihar (pop. 99 million) is in the doldrums. All 254 undergrad colleges affiliated with eight state universities are experiencing a severe faculty crunch with most of them making do with less than half the sanctioned number.
However with state assembly elections due to be called this year, in a bid to placate the influential educated middle class, the ruling JD (U) government has initiated a recruitment drive to fill all faculty vacancies in higher education. In a recruitment ad of September 2014, the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) invited applications from qualified candidates to fill 3,364 vacancies of assistant professors (lecturers) in all eight state universities of Bihar. An extended deadline of January 5, 2015 granted by Patna high court to apply for the vacant positions, passed off without any new problems.
If all goes well and the appointments are made, the ruling JD (U) will claim credit for this in the forthcoming assembly elections scheduled for November. Yet the fact that during its decade in power in Bihar, the JD (U) has presided over continuous degradation of higher education institutions in the state, cannot be glossed over. œIn reality few classes have been held in a majority of colleges/universities with only admissions and examinations being conducted. Gone are the days when you walked into a college and saw a packed classroom and academic activity. Institutions of higher education in the state bear a ghostly look amid collapsing walls, decaying furniture and missing teachers, says Dr. S.P. Singh, acting dean of SLK College, affiliated with BSBS University (Muzaffarpur), in the district town of Sitamarhi.
The pathetic condition of state government universities in Bihar where academic standards have been slipping continuously for several decades to the extent that their certificates carry little weight, is unsurprising. Faculty positions were last filled in 2003 when nearly 1,000 teachers were appointed but inevitably, the recruitment was marred by allegations of caste bias and corruption with patently unsuitable professors and lecturers appointed.
According to a 2013 report, Patna University has a sanctioned strength of 925 teachers against which the actual number is only 395. Likewise Lalit Narayan Mishra University has only 1,043 faculty against the sanctioned 2,062, Tilka Manjhi Bhagalpur University 764 (1,529), Jaiprakash University 469 (699), Baba Saheb Ambedkar Bihar University 1,047 (1,862), Magadh University 1,725 (3,101), B.N. Mandal University 795 (1,440), and Veer Kunwar Singh University 548 (916).
Comments Dr. Vinay Kantha, associate professor of mathematics in Patna University: œWhen I joined the university as a lecturer in 1973, there were nearly 1,000 teachers in Patna University. Now the number is less than 400 while the student count has gone up many times. During the past decade under the JD (U) government, Bihar has accorded impressive 10 percent-plus annual rates of GDP growth. Despite this the education sector has been neglected and the failure to recruit faculty for colleges and universities has not aroused any public protest. I believe the neglect of higher education is deliberate. The political-bureaucratic nexus cannot countenance flourishing universities which will attract learned faculty very likely to carefully examine and criticise government policies, says Kantha.
The ancient Nalanda University (5 th century BCE) was globally acknowledged as a centre of academic excellence and attracted students from around the world. The resurrected Nalanda University which has already begun classes at Rajgir (Bihar) is certain to experience a hard time recapturing its ancient glory.
Arun Srivastava (Patna)