There is no rocket science that you need to understand why the education of Bihar is constantly in a decline mode. If I am permitted by the giant economists like Amartya Sen, then allow me the liberty to say that after the 1980s, the graph of education in Bihar did see nothing than a forced regression! For the development of even a small mohalla, the thing that you need is will and this will become political will on a broader level – a district, a state or the country. Unfortunately, in Bihar, as far as I remember, I did never witness the political will to uplift the conditions of education – be it on the school level, college level or the university level. Corruption has always been there from the toe to the lot of hairs on the peak of the head!
The recent topper scam in Bihar has exposed the decades-long prevailed corruption in Bihar. Lalkeshwar, now in police custody, has revealed some head-aching facts during the interrogation sessions. Pay Rs 20,00000 and you can be the next Bihar Board topper in secondary or the higher secondary examinations. The syndicate that was revolving around Bachha Ray could only be exposed because of the ongoing expose in media. Otherwise, the system was once again all set to let the matter go.
All the promises to bring sushashan in the state have been left far behind. Nitish Kumar, the new definition of a lame duck administrator, has maintained a perennial mumm on this matter. However, others in his dubious cabinet have left no opportunities wasted of taking the credit for the police activity.
The education system in Bihar needs a great jolt. The highly condemnable nexus between coaching directors, private college mafias with the senior and important officers and the politicians has kept the students of Bihar in darkness of a commodified education system. You can buy degrees; you can get seats in colleges if you are ready to pay; you can get the examination questions a month before if you have a ‘santh-ganth’ with some babus… People don’t understand anything else when it comes to get their children on the top of the results list. The parents who have accidently faced the cameras of media who were in the college premises of Vishun Dev Ray College, run by Bacha Ray, bluntly confessed that they want to see their children scoring high in the examination and that’s why they get them admitted to the college of Bacha!
Ask any person who has crossed 60 years in Bihar and he will tell you how the deterioration took place here. The question is how to clean up this mess? How to tell the universities in Bihar that they are here to provide quality education and not to sell the degrees? The answer is very simple – we don’t need an uneducated CM! What we need is the contribution of educated people. The intellectuals should come to the fore and mull this serious issue of education system in Bihar. Serious actions are the need of the hour otherwise we are all set to see Bihar lagging behind in the race of quality human resource production.
The onus is equally on the students who willingly slip into the game of shortcuts to achieve name, fame and good colleges outside Bihar. They need to focus on their studies rather than spending their quality time in hunting colleges like this Bacha Ray’s. We can only hope for a better tomorrow if we determine to strengthen our today.
