PATNA: Corruption and irregularities in the functioning of BEd colleges in Bihar, as pointed out by governor Satyal Pal Malik on Thursday, have been an open secret of sorts for years.
In fact, the governor’s initiative to hold a centralised admission test for all the 321 BEd colleges in the state reminds one of a similar initiative taken by then governor B M Lal in June 1999.
Lal, who was also the chief justice of Patna high court, had ordered a vigilance probe into reports of fake BEd degree distribution in L N Mithila University. Following the submission of vigilance report, LNMU’s then VC Abdul Moghni was arrested.
Also, the university had to cancel the BEd degree conferred on all the 2,300 students of National Teachers’ Training College-Madhubani and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad Teachers’ Training College-Darbhanga.
The beneficiaries of these fake degrees were from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Haryana, Punjab, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh, who had procured these degrees reportedly on payment of Rs 1.50 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh each.
Subsequently, Magadh University’s former VC Ziyauddin Ahmad was also sent to jail for his reported involvement in BEd examination racket. Quite recently in December last year, vigilance sleuths quizzed Bhim Rao Ambedkar Bihar University-Muzaffarpur VC in connection with alleged irregularities in granting affiliation to private BEd colleges without the chancellor’s approval.
The BEd degree racket is believed to have flourished after private players were allowed to open teachers’ training colleges. Most private training colleges were granted affiliation by the universities concerned without verifying their physical infrastructure.
“Most of these private BEd colleges enjoy the patronage of politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen,” said All India Teacher Educators’ Association president Kumar Sanjeev.
Taking note of the reported fraud, the chancellor’s secretariat has already directed the universities to link the salary accounts of teachers of training colleges with their Aadhaar numbers in order to check impersonations.
According to Raj Bhawan sources, several training colleges have furnished fake names of teachers to the universities as well as regulatory bodies like the National Council for Teacher Education. Quite recently following an investigation based on Aadhaar number, the Raj Bhawan found that the teacher shown on the roll of a training college was in fact a teacher of local A N College.
Meanwhile, Bihar Public Service Commission’s former member and Patna University senator Shiv Jatan Thakur has hailed the governor’s move. “The initiative will usher in phenomenal change in the quality of teacher education,” he said.