Uttar Pradesh ... higher education minister has proposed a 50% qualifying mark for admission into postgraduate courses. In one stroke this will halve the. postgraduate student population, make teaching in the classroom that much more focused and meaningful, rid campuses of ... parasites and save the state some of the thoroughly undeserved subsidy it provides higher education. With premier institutions in Allahabad, Banaras and Lucknow, UP was once the educational mecca of northern India. Today, it has 17 universities and an astounding 636 postgraduate colleges. They churn out armies of mediocrities who may have an MA in English literature but would find it difficult to draft a job application. There are Ph.D. aspirants who rarely see the inside of a classroom but spend their time intriguing in the union office, 40-year-olds still busy in the crime and grime of the Hindi heartland's student politics.

The situation is scarcely different in even the national capital. The hostels of Jawaharlal Nehru University, for instance, constitute the cheapest middle-class housing colony in Delhi ... For too long has lounging in colleges and universities passed off for higher education. It is time the government, in UP and elsewhere, rationalised its educational outlay - and transferred its priorities to primary schools.