The second assumption is that there are enough people willing to become victims, students who did not deserve admission to certain streams are being given a back-door entry, thus even eroding the value of the degree for those students who have gained the same or equivalent based on merit. The study centres may be laughing their way to the bank this year, but next year the situation may be different. It is foreseen that over 60% of the students will fail after the first year because these students will not be able to pass the exam, if conducted properly.

The IT industry will never accept these students and the placement rate will be dismal. Poorly qualified faculty’s capabilities will be reflected in the students. It is simply impossible to find qualified instructors for so many locations within such a short time period. They only advertised for the posts three weeks ago. Eventually, M.Sc students will be taught by BAs/B.Scs or at best an odd MCA who accepted the position of an instructor since they could not find jobs as software developers. It is common knowledge that “those who can, do, those who cannot, teach.”

Hopefully, someone would file a PIL against this madness before the “student welfare” clause gets invoked. Punjabi University saw the PTU bandwagon raking in money so they too dropped the veneer of a respectable university and decided to join in. Thank God, PU has some ethics, although I can image that the temptation among the decision-makers must have been strong.

The state government certainly will not do anything to stop this. The Technical Education Minister’s son is said to have hatched this conspiracy jointly with PTU’s VC and Director of the Outreach program. That is why Mr Garcha even had a press conference to defend PTU.

Everybody is focused on making a quick killing and the students are willing victims as this fraud will give them an “easy degree,” something that they could not have attained otherwise. And we, the people, will look on and shake our head at how corrupt our country has become without realising that it is we who tolerate and accept this corruption. Maybe we deserve what we get!

A concerned citizen

Role of moneybags: Punjab Technical University has, through an advertisement, announced admission to 390 seats for the degree in pharmacy in nine colleges of Punjab.

My daughter being a candidate, I visited three colleges. The revelation is shocking and brings under suspicion the working of PTU and the All India Council of Technical Education.

In all there are nine colleges, two of these being government run at Amritsar and Hoshiarpur. All these colleges were earlier giving two years diploma in pharmacy and have been upgraded for degree in B.Pharmacy very recently.

While the Punjab government has kept an annual fee at Rs 37,000 for "free" seats, the private colleges are charging about Rs 65,000. For paid seats the fee is Rs 70,000 which, after including other charges, may go up to Rs 1 lakh per annum. The 10-page broucher being given by PTU is priced at Rs 400, but does not give any information about the colleges except the location and respective seats. Nothing is mentioned about infrastructure, teaching faculties and facilities in the different colleges.

Both the government colleges have yet to take steps for upgradation though the sessions started on August 2. The private colleges’ plight is worse. A few colleges are housed in very small rooms. There are no laboratories meeting the needs of a degree course. The college at Patti does not give the impression of a nursery school even.

After spending about Rs 1 lakh per annum, is the student not entitled to quality education in terms of teaching faculties, laboratories and other amenities commensurate with the level of the course?