'Each Syndicate meeting is an awful experience'

The Inquirer

The vice-chancellor (VC) of Bangalore University, Dr N Prabhu Dev is no stranger to controversies having battled the demons of the system in other high-profile posts. From his appointment at the varsity’s helm to his attempts to ring in reforms, the daggers have been out, turning the halls of academic excellence into a political minefield.

Though a cardiac surgeon by profession, Dr Dev has administrative and academic experience. He was professor and head of the department of cardiac surgery at Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology and a syndicate member of Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences. He was also a professor at the Bangalore Medical College for 15 years.
It remains to be seen if the VC’s decision to abolish custodianship of examinations eliminates middle men and vested interests from the examination and results system. But, with the varsity spiralling deeper into the throes of controversy with each passing day, Prabhu Dev has his task cut out to perform surgery of a different kind.

In an interaction with Kaushik Chakravarthy of Deccan Herald, Prabhu Dev spoke about the controversies, the challenges and his future plans.

From your appointment to the reforms you have initiated, you have courted controversies. Of late, the university has been in the news for all the wrong reasons...

There are too many vested interests here. They were in total control of the situation right from examinations and results to appointments. It was a money-making racket and there were several kingpins operating as custodians. I took over and the results were announced in a record time and I also abolished custodianship. The reason for all the controversy has simply been vested interests, whose wings were clipped by the reforms.
As for my appointment, I have worked as an academician for more than 30 years and taught cardiac surgery. I have launched many courses at Jayadeva and initiated a number of reforms as a syndicate member of the RGUHS. So I am not new to education.

Abolishing the custodianship has been termed by some of your predecessors as moving from one devil to another. With principals as custodians, don’t you think it will be much harder to monitor the process in private centres?

No. The appointment of custodians was a multi-crore racket. The under-hand payment for management courses like BBM, BCom, etc, was a multi-crore racket and it was simply a case of sharing the booty. There were scandals and high-level officers were involved and the results were a joke. Additional sheets were being added at a later stage and people who had failed were declared passed and vice-versa. The decision to abolish custodianship was not a unilateral one by me. I consulted hundreds of principals and we held five meetings to come to the decision.

But despite these reforms, the revaluation of results for many courses have been delayed. Why?

I have had more than my fair share of bad inheritances. The delays were mainly because of backlogs from examinations that were conducted before my tenure. With those results, the custodians still hold the key. I have repeatedly requested the custodians and sent out notices to them for results but I haven’t got any response. Nearly 10,000 marks cards are still pending.

Syndicate members are pitting one against the other and one of them was even trapped by the Lokayukta. How do you propose to reign them in?

Again I do not have the powers to appoint them. I have inherited them all and each syndicate meeting is an awful experience. There are people literally throwing things at each other at these meetings. As for corruption, many syndicate members have come with the sole intention of making money. Keeping all this in mind, a decision was just taken at the Inter University Board meeting that syndicate members will not chair inspection committees.

The registrar of the Bangalore University has been no less controversial. Several of the dealings of the university, particularly the appointment of a private nodal agency to manage distance education, are far from transparent.

The registrar was also an inheritance and his appointment is not under my control. But as far as the appointment of the nodal agency is concerned we advertised in the papers. Then a high-level advisory committee was appointed to recommend suitable centres. It was then inspected by a sub-committee and approved by the Distance Education Council. The managing director of this agency is someone who implemented the distance education project for Manipal University.

What are your future plans for the university and how much of them are you in a position to implement?

I want to appoint an advisory committee for the vice-chancellor. Improvement in academic standards and impetus to scientific research are my priorities. I want to strengthen the examination reforms further and improve the administrative system. But a vice-chancellor needs more autonomy in the appointment of registrars, the selection of syllabus, its upgradation and improvement in teaching techniques. We need registrars with a background in education administration and not IAS or IPS officers. Ultimately, I will do what my conscience tells me. I am not bound by any influence.