Karnataka: Higher education department gave ‘incorrect info to House’ on postgraduates

The higher education department provided incorrect information to the Legislative Assembly during the recent session, it has now come to light.

In a written reply to a question by BJP's Gururaj Gantihole, the department said the number of postgraduates passing out every year in the state was around 8,000. The answer was signed by Higher Education Minister Dr M C Sudhakar. 

As per the reply, in 2022-23, the number of students who completed post-graduate courses was 8,996. It was 8,786 in 2023-24 and 8,031 in the 2024-25 academic year. Adding it up, the number of students who completed post-graduate programmes has not crossed 26,000 in these three years. 

However, data available from the Unified University and College Management System (UUCMS) shows that the number is more than 65,000 every year.

Officials working with UUCMS, which has real data on higher education enrolment, pass percentage, etc and monitors the same were surprised with the data placed in the House. 

They said, "Even we were surprised to see the numbers. No idea from where they got this data, as we did not provide it," said an official from UUCMS.

"Bangalore University alone has 3,500 postgraduate admissions on its Jnanabharati campus. If affiliated colleges are included, the number will go up to 15,000. How can such false information be provided to the House?," said a senior official of Bangalore University.

Gururaj Gantihole told DH that he would write to Speaker U T Khader on this.

"I will report it to the speaker. Not just this question, we get irresponsible answers to many of our questions. There is no seriousness among officers in this government. Not even 50% of our questions are considered seriously. Even in that, false information is given to at least 20% of the questions," said the legislator.

"I will request the speaker to allow a half-an-hour discussion on this matter in the next session," he said.