How scam, mass cheating underscore crisis in Indian education system

A World Bank report stated that scam and mass cheating are causing great harm to the Indian education system.

New Delhi, Oct 18: Is the Indian education system facing a serious crisis which is proving detrimental to the overall learning of students? The answer is yes, if we go through a recent report prepared by the World Bank that cited how instances of scam and mass cheating are causing great disservice to the education of our children.

The World Development Report 2018: 'Learning to Realise Education's Promise' stated that Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh and mass copying in Bihar bring forth the overall learning crisis among the children in India.

The report released last month cited the example of Vyapam scam to showcase the existence of massive amount of corruption and political interference in the Indian education system.

As per the World Bank report, in the Vyapam scam, "senior politicians and government officials had allegedly set up a system allowing unqualified candidates to pay bribes... to receive high rankings in entrance tests for professional courses and jobs".

The scam has taken place under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government headed by chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan in Madhya Pradesh. The opposition Congress has accused the BJP government in MP of giving shelter to corrupt politicians and bureaucrats involved in the scam.

While denying the charges, the BJP alleged that the roots of the Vyapam scam, which has also led to several deaths under mysterious circumstances, lie in the previous Congress government in the state.

In the report, the World Bank has also mentioned the instances of mass cheating, mostly reported from Bihar.

According to the World Bank, mass cheating is a curse in some Indian states where armed police are sometimes deployed in classrooms to explain how parents can also make it difficult to implement learning-focused policies.

"When parents help children to cheat, it becomes hard to measure student learning. In 2015, the global media broadcast images of families in Bihar handing cheat sheets to students taking exams," the report said.

OneIndia News