The news from Delhi is as predictable as it is depressing. India's medical entrance exams, the NEET, have been compromised. Again. This time, the scandal is so rank that it has triggered a nationwide security lockdown. Proctor guards. Biometric checks. The whole panoply of suspicion. And now, UK universities are reviewing their admission protocols for Indian students. As if we didn't see this coming.
But let us not pretend this is a uniquely Indian problem. The decadence of meritocracy is a global epidemic. We in the West like to tut-tut at the corruption of the subcontinent, but our own house is made of straw. The British medical school system, once the envy of the world, has been reduced to a sausage factory churning out mediocrity. The obsession with league tables, the inflation of grades, the cult of the personal statement: all of it is a sham. We are merely a few steps behind Delhi.
Consider the historical parallels. The late Roman Empire was undone by a similar rot. Patronage. Nepotism. The sale of offices. Sound familiar? Today's medical exam scandal in India is the same disease, different century. The British Empire, too, had its share of bought commissions and sinecures. We laugh at the Victorians for their stuffy complacency, yet we replicate their errors with the zeal of a student copying from a neighbour's paper.
What do we expect when we treat education as a commodity? India's middle class has been sold a dream: that a medical degree is a ticket to prosperity. The result is a black market in question papers. In the UK, we have our own illusions. We fetishise the 'Russell Group' and scoff at the polytechnics. We create an elite that is not necessarily talented, merely well-connected. The scandal in India is a mirror to our own hypocrisy.
But there is a deeper issue: national identity. The UK's universities are increasingly overseas franchises. We admit Indian students for their fees, not their intellect. We then wring our hands when their qualifications are questioned. It is a form of intellectual colonialism, extracting wealth while pretending to spread enlightenment. The Victorians would be proud.
What is to be done? We must return to the grim rigour of the old exams. The oral viva. The unseen paper. The cold fear of failure. Meritocracy requires that we allow people to fail, not just pass. The Indian government's security lockdown is a symptom of a system that has lost its nerve. The UK's panic over admission protocols is the same.
Historically, great nations rise when they embrace truth, however uncomfortable. They fall when they prefer the comfortable lie. The Indian medical exam scandal is a lie wrapped in a degree. The UK's university system is a lie wrapped in a prospectus. We can either reform or face the inevitable decline. The choice is ours, but time is short.