'Quality of education deteriorating due to fake PhD degree holders'

From our Correspondent

Bongaigaon, November 27: “More than 800 lecturers working in Assam have Doctorate degree from universities of other States. Among them, more than 50 per cent have produced fake doctorate degree,” claimed Bhadreswar Barman, president of garik Suraksa Mancha Assam (NSMA) in Bongaigaon on Sunday. He said that due to such educationists who had produced fake doctorate degree for getting personnel benefit, the quality of education in Assam was deteriorating.

“We have come to know about some lecturers of Bongaigaon who had submitted fake doctorate degrees. In Rajiv Gandhi Memorial College of Lengtisinga area in Bongaigaon district, there are three such lecturers - Zahirul Islam, lecturer of Education, Fazar Ali, lecturer of Economics and Abu Bakkar Siddiq, lecturer of History. These persons had submitted their PhD degree certificate from Magadh University of Bihar and by that, Zahirul Islam became Principal of the college. I must mention that these persons had completed their PhD degree within six months only. According to the official record, Zahirul Islam had been registered by Magadh University for Ph.D degree in the subject ‘A study of the status of primary education with reference to Chirang, BTAD district of Assam’ on 11.9.2012. But surprisingly, just after six months of his registration, on April 10, 2013, he was awarded PhD degree by the university. Is it possible to complete a thesis within six months?” said Barman.

He added, “According to UGC Guideline, 2009, to get PhD degree the candidate had to go through several steps like NOC, entrance test, pre-course work, course work, synopsis submission and semir. According to the same guideline, the candidate can be given PhD degree at least after two years of his registration. But surprisingly these people completed all the necessary steps within six months only.  Moreover, when we submitted a RTI query, we found that Zahirul Islam had taken only 17 days leave within this tenure. How is it possible that a person can complete the total procedure for doctorate degree within only 17 days?”

Barman said that the cases of Fazar Ali and Abu Bakkar Siddiq were also same. “In this regard we have already sent an appeal to the Chief Minister for an enquiry regarding this certificate on 10.08.2016. We demand that such fake certificate holders should be detected and should be punished as they are polluting the education sector,” he said.