Lessons to learn from row over fake job offer letters to Odisha engineering students
The past week saw Odisha’s top university, Siksha 'O' Anusandhan (SOA), a deemed-to-be university, in turmoil. About 300 of its engineering graduates received the shock of their lives when they found out that the placement letters they had received were fake. Following protests, a high-ranking university official has been arrested, the government has stepped in and promised inquiry, a stop-gap arrangement has been offered by the university and a political slugfest has begun over the issue.
In this unfortunate series of incidents lies many lessons, which if not learnt will only continue to plague higher education in Odisha.
Odisha is not particularly well-known for institutes of higher education. Barring isolated examples such as Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB), National Institute of Technology (NIT) Rourkela, Shrirama Chandra Bhanj Medical College, Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology (formerly known as University College of Engineering and a couple of more, no other institute espouses veneration.
When Siksha 'O' Anusandhan University notched an impressive 16th position in National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2016 (which fell to 20 this year), it became Odisha’s best university. That such a crisis could happen in the foremost university in Odisha speaks volumes about the state of higher education.
Here's what we can learn from the incident.
Lesson No 1: Transparency
The university has claimed that it had no role in ascertaining the veracity of the job letters and that it was an agency which conducted the placements. But then how can a university not know which company is recruiting its students?
Were the students aware of the agency conducting the placement procedure? Should placement information be notified by companies?
There are numerous questions that arise and they all point to gross lack of transparency.
The important stakeholders, the students, should be given information about the placement agency. Being the receiver of the service, students and their guardians have all the rights to know such details. Which agency the college chooses is a different matter and relevant regulators should approve these agencies. This will curb fly-by-night operators.
All outsourcing apart, the buck also stops with the companies that are recruiting students and it should not take much (given the bulk of placements in engineering colleges and technologically sound companies) to publish such information on their websites. That in this case students got to know that their offer letters were fake only after reaching at the company gates is preposterous.
Lesson No 2: Responsibility of regulators
Baffled by the fact how SOA managed to get such a high rank in NIRF, I checked the official website of the university and was startled to see this graph regarding research output. I am providing a screenshot for the readers.
The dark bar is for number of research articles published in Scopus indexed journals, the other bar for articles in Web of Science.
What is the impression that one gets on seeing this? Simple. In 2016, there were nearly 2,600 articles, about 1,900 in 2015, and about 1,400 in 2014, published by the university in Scopus indexed journals.
In 2017, till now (month of May, I assume) the number of publications is close to 2,700. I am pretty confident an average person will read the above graph in this manner.
I then looked into the NIRF website for data SOA had submitted this year.
According to the data submitted to NIRF, the total number of publications in the last three years (that is 2014–2016) in Scopus indexed journals is 1,300. The graph in the university website actually represents cumulative number.
Why did I make such a long transgression from the topic? To impress upon the readers that educational institute can peddle half-truths. It is for the regulators to check the veracity and then take to task these errant institutions.
Lesson No 3: Increased investment
The SOA is at best an average university. To give an example, the average salary for its engineering graduates (ITER) in 2015-16 stood at a very moderate Rs 3.3 lakh per annum.
That it happens to be the state’s best university tells a different story. But what happened to SOA can happen to any other institute. Unless the Odisha government increases spending on higher education, the aspiring youth will get stuck with these few mediocre options available.
The government should be an enabler of growth in number and quality of higher education institutes.
With possible decline in jobs due to automation in the near future, duping risks will rise. It will be important for regulators and agencies to be alert.
In all likelihood the SOA issue will continue to simmer given the political scenario in the state. Amid the high-decibel TV debates — opportunity to score brownie points by political parties — one should think about the hapless youngsters who after spending huge amounts of money and best years of their life are stuck in this precarious situation.
Giving them their due should be the first priority.