Fixing the rot: On the subversion of public examinations and recruitment

Corruption in public life is often linked to “malfeasance”, the venality of government officials in high places taking bribes and misusing their positions to enrich themselves or their cronies. But a more corrosive variant that impinges upon public life includes the systematic subversion of public examinations and recruitment. This is because public examinations and teacher recruitment are pathways to creating skilled individuals in a rapidly modernising economy where jobs increasingly depend on skills and training. Corruption in these processes, which should ideally be done on merit, will erode India’s ability to fully realise its demographic dividend. Be it the National Testing Agency having to re-conduct the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for medical undergraduate aspirants, or, the postponement of the Maharashtra Teacher Eligibility Test just before its scheduled date (June 28), the malaise seems depressingly familiar. It is driven by a cottage industry that leaks papers through insider networks and targets the vast coaching ecosystem to rake in money from those seeking shortcuts to pass. In the Maharashtra case, the alleged kingpin — a Patna resident suspected of links to an Odisha paper leak scam in 2024 and even to the NEET scam — reportedly ran teams from Bihar and Haryana that sought to sell papers to coaching classes.