India Begins Sweeping Crackdown on Higher-Education Regulator
New Delhi — In an unprecedented move at the behest of India’s new education minister, the country’s main investigative agency has launched a sweeping crackdown on its regulator of engineering and management colleges, filing charges of corruption against the regulator’s chairman and arresting a top official in the act of taking a bribe to grant recognition to an engineering school, The Hindustan Times reported.
The regulator, one of 16 in India, has often been accused of corruption, and its officers across India have been accused of approving colleges with poor facilities in exchange for money. Many engineering schools have also been started by politicians who, it is alleged, are complicit in the bribery process. Many colleges themselves have been accused of taking money, euphemistically referred to here as “capitation fees,” to admit students to engineering courses that are in high demand. [The Chronicle of Higher Education]
