The Bihar government has narrowed the parameters for aiding intermediate colleges and degree colleges with grants, officials said, adding that this decision would impact 602 inter-colleges and 225 affiliated degree colleges, which were awaiting funding and clearance of backlog for years.
Bihar education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary on Wednesday said the institutions that needed performance grants would have to present audited accounts, indicating that they have used previous grants to disburse salaries to their teachers and staff through realtime gross settlement (RTGS) or direct benefit transfer and spent 70% of their internal resources on it.
“There have been a lot of complaints regarding exploitation of teachers and staff, who don’t get paid properly despite institutions getting performance grants. Now the endeavour is to ensure that the performance grants go to the teachers and staff of the institutions. The institutions are also supposed to use 70% of their internal resources on salaries for teachers and staff,” he said.
This is not the first time the government has tried to regulate affiliated colleges. The government abolished the unaided education policy on March 26, 2008 and decided to make payments to institutions on the basis of their performance, directly linked to the pass percentage of the actual number of students, in the hope that things would improve.
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Later the scheme was made more specific — the better the performance of students, the higher the allocation, with different slabs for first, second and third division. Though it brought a sudden improvement in the results of little-known inter-colleges, beating even established institutions with far better infrastructure and faculty strength, ambiguity over their functioning deepened due to the emergence of toppers who could not even name the subjects they studied.
As soon as the government linked funding to performance, several institutions allegedly terminated the services of old teachers and appointed their kith and kin or started using ghost names. This prompted the government to issue a directive in 2010 that the grants of institutions making payments to illegally appointed teachers and employees would be stopped. The government made it binding on the institution managements to make payment through cheques to maintain transparency.
In 2010, during the scrutiny of records and physical verification of Magadh University (MU) colleges, the department had detected 10 unaided institutions on paper only. The department had then decided to categorise institutions in three categories – A, B and C– on the basis of their records, but that, too, did not materialise. In 2012 also, the government admitted record fudging by some colleges and formed inspection teams for all the aided affiliated colleges.
During a meeting of university chancellors a couple of years ago, several vice-chancellors (V-C) raised the issue of affiliated colleges and how they used their enormous clout and even muscle power to dictate terms. In Veer Kuer Singh University, a V-C resigned due to undue pressure, while another V-C, who tried to resist, had to face inquiry.
Former MU V-C Qamar Hasan once said that he apprised Raj Bhavan of the problems. “In fact, the biggest problem is that affiliated colleges don’t keep track of admissions and the process goes on till the last moment before examination. We have tried to stop this practice, but it is a tough ask. The students are incited and they ransacked the MU office in protest against action. The affiliated colleges lack a transparent system,” he added.
Another V-C said it was high time the government showed the will to regulate affiliated colleges, which often tried to hijack the system with fudged enrolment figures, no transparency in admission process and academic activities and attempts to manage results.
“The government linked performance to funding with good intention. After all, if the performance of colleges improves genuinely, it is a positive sign and for this the teachers need to be rewarded. The government gives funds for payment to teachers and staff of colleges functioning as per laid down norms. We will ensure it evenly across all aided institutions and those flouting it will have to face the music,” he added.
