The state government's policy of linking government aid for private educational institutions to results may have played a major role in mushrooming of fake institutions.
In 2008, the state government introduced an unaided education policy to provide financial assistance to unaided educational institutions (owned by trusts or private individuals) - to help them meet the expenses of teachers and for infrastructure development. The aid was linked to performance of students of respective schools.
An unaided institution was to get Rs 4,000 for every student clearing matriculation and Intermediate exams with first division marks. The amount was Rs 3500 each for second division students and Rs 2,500 each for third division students.
"As the government was providing assistance on the basis of performance of students, many private individuals and trusts came forward to set up schools/Intermediate colleges," said an education department official speaking on condition of anonymity. Many schools/intermediate colleges began mushrooming. Education department sources said the number of unaided institutions grew from 200 to around 700 in just seven years.
"When the new education policy for unaided educational institutions was formed, there were certain guidelines for management and functioning of such institutions," said retired IAS officer V.S. Dubey, who had served as chief secretary of Bihar and later Jharkhand. "But, these institutions clearly flouted the norms. Also, because of corruption in the school examination board, no action was initiated against such institutions."
Many unaided schools/Intermediate colleges came up with poor infrastructure. Colleges were functioning from single rooms and some schools and colleges from residences of trustees. There were even colleges that existed only on paper. The number of such educational institutions rose when Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh (now in jail) was BSEB chairman. Around 212 institutions that got affiliation during Lalkeshwar's tenure are under the BSEB inspection committee's scanner and the board cancelled the affiliation of 68 on Tuesday.
"Such unaided educational institutions with poor infrastructure also started enrolling fake students and promised to help students clear Intermediate exams with good marks for money," Dubey said. Not surprisingly, police investigation unearthed that many unaided educational institutions, including those managed by Amit Kumar alias Bachcha Rai, principal and director of Vishun Roy College, accepted money from students for high marks.
Patna University retired economics teacher N.K. Choudhary said: "In the past decade the government laid stress on education and spending capacity of individuals increased. Parents began focusing on education, but as there was shortage of Intermediate colleges, many fell for such unaided institutions."
Another reason behind mushrooming of such unaided colleges, the sources said, was that the state government had failed to open new government colleges.
Choudhary said: "The only two colleges the government opened in the past few decades are the Government Girls' College at Gardanibagh and at Gulzarbagh in Patna."
