Fake Universities: Put an End to it!

The University Grants Commission (UGC) monitors higher education institutions across the country. Every year, UGC publishes the details of fake universities.

According to the UCG notification for this year, there are 21 fake universities in India.The details of which are listed by UGC on its Twitter page. Accordingly, it has been revealed that 8 of the universities operating in Delhi are fake.

 Four fake universities have been identified in Uttar Pradesh, two each in West Bengal and Odisha, and one each in Puducherry, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra.

It is comforting that there are no fake universities in Tamil Nadu.
Counterfeiting is cheap all over the world.

 The counterfeiting that started in food items and electronic devices has now extended to education. This is followed by fake degrees.

 Next to doctorate, which is considered the highest degree in India, Ph.D holders are considered highly educated. But in recent times these Ph.Ds have been found to be fake. This caused a great shock across the country.

Thus, 21 fake universities have come to light based on the study conducted by the UGC on the fake universities that work only for money. 

These universities have no authority to award degrees. It is welcome that UGC has warned and created awareness among the students not to be fooled by joining fake universities. At the same time, another question did not arise.

Why has UGChas not taken up the task of completely preventing fake universities from functioning? Can't it be prevented with the help of the Union and State Governments?If the same bogus universities offer medical degrees like MBBS, MS, MD, etc., can we just warn them as ``fake''? If fake universities can be identified and reported every year why can't they be shut down?

In the same way, despite the awareness of fake universities and not to join them, students continue to get cheated by joining them. Therefore, any fake university in the country should be suppressed with an iron fist to the extent that it cannot function.

Those in power must understand that this is not impossible. We must step up to take drastic action!