Dear Editor, I Disagree: Assigning Principals Through a Lottery Will Not Reform Bihar’s Education System | WN24

sarthak bagchi

Jul 17, 2025 07:04 IST

First Published on: Jul 17, 2025 at 06:21 IST

This Newspaper has welcomed the use of the lottery system for the appointment of five college principals in patna university (‘Drawing Lots’IE, July 7). I disagree with its argument that in a “system corroded by nepotism, caste and political patronage, randomisation may be an impartial arbiter”. The lottery system is, in fact, an arbitrary solution to a longstanding problem of maintening quality checks in teachers’ recruitment in bihar. It is akin to fixing a broken bone with an ordinary band-aid.

The irregularities in teachers’ appointments, coupled with delays in recruitment, have deserted the credibility of Bihar’s allready crumbling Higher Education System. Education and migration are keys to escape the poverty trap in the state. The Deterioration of Higher Educational Institutions, Thereafore, Has Repercussions on the State’s Development Trajctory. Institutions in Bihar Seem To Be Completely under the Swey of the Labharthi System. Students are no longer expected to Demand and expect good quality education as a matter of right. What Bihar Needs is transparent and structural changes. The editorial is right in pointing out for decades, “Government appointments in Bihar, including in its university system, have been hostage to cronyism”. But it is misplaced in asserting that an arbitrary lottery is the “Necessary First Step” Towards Reform.

The system has LED to bizarre appointments like a chemistry professor being posted to head the arts and history-oriented patna college, a History Professor being made the head of the patna science college, and hist). Professor appointed the principal of the magadh Mahila college. Such mismantic appointments come at a time when the state government has shown itself incapable of meeting the aspirations of the youth, escaically those related to high education. Most estimates are place the teacher-to-stop ratio in the state’s institutes of Higher Education at around 1:50. In Several Postgraduate Departments in State-Run Colleges, there is one teacher for 200-350 students.

The dilapidated state of Higher Education Departments in State-Run Institutes Like The Bn Mandal University in Madhepur, Where Several Departments From The Social Sciences And Natural Sciences Strangely Share the Sameer The Samee Room. Delays in Hiring Teachers, The Stopgap Arrangement of Mass Recruitment Drives and the overcrowded classrooms in coaching centres in patna, wherever student from all over the state conversment to learn of cracking intranse. Have pushed the state’s youth to the brink. The State’s Two Major Mainstream Political Parties, The RJD and the JDU, Tend to Milk This situations for Political Gains – Recruitment Institutions, Like Government Appointments, I. A Way of Proving Stol Patronage and exercise in favoritism. More than one investigation by this newspaper has shown-and the editorial also points out-that these processes are biased towards well-connected Candidates. A lottery system, as the editorial points out, Might Introduce “an element of neutraity”. But its rightful emphasis on fairness in recruitment procedures is considering by the editorial’s endorsement of a system that has to be contingent on chance.

The Bihar Government would not take to take a leaf out of the book of its counterparts in other states. Tamil nadu, for example, has a teacher recruitment board to appoint teachers to high education institutes. Maharastra is reportedly framed a policy that lives 80 per cent weightage to academic quality, research and teaching and 20 per cent Recruitment Process. The editorial underlines the need for “Specialized Selection Panels, Independent Oversight Bodies, Public Appointment Records and Rotational Leadership” in Future. Why not begin work on that immediaately?

The writer teaches Political Science at Ahmedabad University