Guest post by AYESHA KIDWAI

With the latest educational scandal of the UGC NET exam being cancelled because the National Testing Agency admitted to gross violations of confidentiality, we see everything come to pass, that teachers all over the country foretold regarding the drastic changes made in the education system over the past ten years. Reasonably robust public universities have been brought to their knees – drastic fund cuts to libraries and student scholarships, corresponding rise in funds to security agencies, university admissions delayed by months in some years,  anomalies in admissions that are impossible to confirm because full admission lists with breakups are no longer made available to faculty or students. The system has become utterly opaque. And all this is excluding the academic changes that are still being brought about in an endless stream by the head of the UGC – a range of fantastical policies such as twice a year admissions,  PhD admission immediately after a BA in subjects the students may not have studied, along with the ending of the MPhil degree. It’s like Mamidala Jagadhesh Kumar, who began the process of destroying JNU as its Vice Chancellor (a task ably taken up now by the current Vice Chancellor) asks himself every morning – what can I do today that’s fun, will create utter confusion and block the process of critical thinking and serious scholarship some more?

Teachers watch enraged, as our committed and hardworking students face hurdle after hurdle in their goal of pursuing knowledge and dignified livelihoods.  As they protested outside the office of the Minister for Education they were manhandled by the police, picked up and detained.

Image courtesy The Telegraph

Along with Ayesha, we say to them –

Do not be disheartened or depressed. Do not believe that just because the BJP-RSS has smashed the entire country’s education system to smithereens, that education or honesty is worthless. It is in fact the only way out of this morass— that’s why these fascists do not want you to have it. Because if you do, you will also find your way out of them. So instead of turning your disappointment inward and causing yourself harm or distress, express your anger please.

Centralization and exclusion have been the hall marks of the transformations. Faculty inputs in admissions have been obliterated with the gigantic and bloated National Testing Agency (NTA) emerging as the chief control centre of all entrance examinations. What is this beast?

Ayesha Kidwai tells us more.

In January this year, the autonomy of universities to conduct their own entrance examinations at the research level was snatched away by the UGC by an arbitrary diktat that the UGC NET examination condcuted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) will serve as the sole examination by which admission to PhD programmes will be determined. All the Central University Vice Chancellors immediately complied with this directive, riding roughshod over the internal protests by students and teachers alike. The end result of going with this corrupt, disorganised organisation called the NTA is therefore this: THERE WILL BE NO ADMISSIONS TO THE PHD PROGRAMMES OF MOST UNIVERSITIES AT THE BEGINNING OF THE ACADEMIC YEAR IN JULY-AUGUST THIS YEAR.

Perhaps only one university  tried to fight this NTA regime in the courts, way back in 2018-19, when it was first imposed on us in JNU. The courts gave us no relief. In our writ, we raised very legitimate concerns about the security and the format of the exam, but these were never even answered by JNU or the NTA. Instead, the same person who was JNU VC then was elevated to the head of the UGC.

Just look where we are today. Over 9 lakhs of students wrote the examination. Amongst them would have been be many disadvantaged and oppressed sections, who have fought very very hard to make it this far, who have such a thirst for knowledge that they are willing to pursue a research degree which is now guaranteed NOT to give them a job unless they bow servilely before the government.

What is the NTA?

Many of us might think that the NTA is an experienced and long standing government organisation, but this couldn’t be further from the truth! The 6 year old NTA is just a SOCIETY–not set up by an Act of Parliament, or a PSU, or a public sector commission or board, or a registered company! It is registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, is just a Governing Body with no general body to speak of, and is not subject to the rules that govern the conduct and honesty of government employees.

The UGC -NET and the NEET exam (besides several others), used to be conducted by the CBSE until 2018, which was (and is) a a national board of education in India for public and private schools, controlled and managed by the Union Government of India.

Q1: If an autonomous testing agency was required at all, why was the Societies Registration Act a route chosen by the government of India? Why was not an Act of Parliament (such as was done to set up UGC or AICTE) passed, or an autonomous Council created under the Ministry of Education, like the CBSE? WAS THIS ROUTE CHOSEN TO EVADE THE FINANCIAL SCRUTINY AND ACCOUNTABILITY THAT ARISES FROM BEING A GOVERNMENT INSTITUTION, BY VIRTUE OF BEING SUBJECT TO THE COMPTROLLER AND AUDITOR GENERAL (CAG)?

Q2: The 95 year old CBSE had been conducting several national examinations since the 1970s and the UGC-NET since 2014. Why was the CBSE’s examination wing not expanded to take over the national testing mechanism? The CBSE has well developed protocols for confidentiality and secrecy, and even how to manage finances— —why were these not laid down as essential for the NTA to follow? WHY IN SETTING UP THE NTA WERE THERE NO ENFORCEABLE GUIDELINES OR DEMANDS FOR ACCOUNTABILITY FROM THE GOVT ABOUT PAPER LEAKS, SELECTION OF EXPERTS AS PAPER SETTERS, MODALITIES ABOUT CONDUCTING THE EXAM, THE FEES THAT IT CAN CHARGE, BESIDES ACCOUNTABILITY FOR BREACHES, WRONG ANSWER KEYS, DELAYS, AND THE LIKE?

Q3: HOW CAN A SOCIETY BE ONE WHOSE MEMORANDUM OF ASSOCIATION IS TO BE FOUND NOWHERE? It’s because no one can join it, as only the government can decide who is its member, even as it bullies and threatens universities into buying into its ridiculous exam. As per this notification, the NTA is a body whose members are handpicked by the govt but whose misconduct and failures, the govt takes no responsibility for! It’s a society with no General Body either, and its composition is completely lopsided. There is no representation of state universities and only ONE CU on a rotational basis.There are over a thousand universities in India and less than a hundred institutes, but the latter far outstrip the former in terms of clout in the body.

The answers to these three questions are quite trivial. The fact is that the NTA is a scam NO DIFFERENT from the Electoral Bonds, the exit polls scam, or PMCARES scam. Just as in these other malpractices, the scheme is simple—USE THE BRUTE FORCE OF THE STATE TO CREATE A SCHEME FOR RUTHLESS EXTORTION, IN WHICH A FEW PROFIT!

Our first call is to the Opposition. Please remember that this NTA, which is entirely a creation of the BJP, also has a monopoly over the national undergraduate and postgraduate entrance examination to virtually all the universities in this country. It’s the UGC NET examination today, the NEET examination yesterday, and it will definitely be the CUETs tomorrow. The education system that independent India built up over the last 65 years is now in full peril. We request you to help us get rid of this NTA, restoring both university autonomy and the peace of mind of our young people.

Our second call is to the courts. Please help. When teachers come before you saying that such an asinine MCQ system does not allow us to test what needs to be examined, that exams needs to be overseen by human eyes and answers to be evaluated by human minds and that such a mammoth centralised system is bound to fail, please listen. In this, we know better.

And my final appeal is to the government and the BJP-RSS. For you, education is all about rewriting the past, but for us, it’s about the future. That’s a vision that you must recognise you do not have.

So please follow Savarkar – apologise, and scrap the NTA.